Don't Be Evil: Google Drops Pentagon's A.I Contract, Create Censored Search Engine For China

[surrealworlds]

Are you against making our military strikes more precise so we can get the bad guys with less collateral damage though?

These employees argued that Google is going against its "Don't Be Evil" motto just by working with the U.S military. Personally, I do not think helping to reduce civilian casualty on the battlefield is evil.

Now, if these employees of a U.S company believe that their country's arm forces is inherently evil, therefore working with the armed forces is equate to helping evil, then that would explains a lot about their stance.

This guy gets it.

 

[surrealworlds]

By military strikes, do you mean kid in a bunker with a joystick pressing a button on illegal drones, illegally flying into restricted airspace and killing people in foreign countries that we're not at war with?

Yes?

 

[surrealworlds]

Would you like to live in Russia?
What exactly would be the point of that?
Google doesn't belong to the government. It's a private company.
Why the hell would you support the government's attempt at strong arming companies into doing their bidding?
If a company doesn't want to get involved with military affairs that is completely up to them.

And again, it is GOOGLE. If America wanted to shun them they could take their very lucrative business and move it elsewhere.
It would be absolutely retarded to cut ties in such a way.
Google would be just fine without America

Google would be fine without America? I was with you right up until there. It was a great post and than you crashed and burned. Jesus man, get it together.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

Google would be fine without America? I was with you right up until there. It was a great post and than you crashed and burned. Jesus man, get it together.

Theyre obviously better off WITH America, but they wouldn't go out of business without them.
Plenty of other countries would be more than willing to pay for Google technology. America shunning a company like Google because of it not wanting to provide tech for war purposes would just mean that other countries would fill in to take up whatever tech they were offering.
That does nothing positive for America. It just gives every other country a leg up on us.

So, as i was saying, Google would be fine without America because other countries would be more than happy to host and pay them

 

[surrealworlds]

Theyre obviously better off WITH America, but they wouldn't go out of business without them.
Plenty of other countries would be more than willing to pay for Google technology. America shunning a company like Google because of it not wanting to provide tech for war purposes would just mean that other countries would fill in to take up whatever tech they were offering.
That does nothing positive for America. It just gives every other country a leg up on us.

So, as i was saying, Google would be fine without America because other countries would be more than happy to host and pay them

Its a silly premise, America is in no way going to shun Google or any other tech giant that thrives here.
Our country has its problems but to deny a companies right to decide how to do business is deciedly anti-American. Also we love our tech giants, evidenced by the increasingly rediculous piles of money thrown at any potential future tech giant.
At this point Google could move its headquarters out of America and would still be just fine as a company. They have the liquid capitol to thrive anywhere.
But if America collectively shunned Google for some reason they would become a drastically different company. They would probably end up a Chinese Conglomerate or something. America is a huge user base with lots of money, any corporation would find it painful to be locked out of that market place..

 

[SmilinDesperado]

Its a silly premise, America is in no way going to shun Google or any other tech giant that thrives here.
Our country has its problems but to deny a companies right to decide how to do business is deciedly anti-American. Also we love our tech giants, evidenced by the increasingly rediculous piles of money thrown at any potential future tech giant.
At this point Google could move its headquarters out of America and would still be just fine as a company. They have the liquid capitol to thrive anywhere.
But if America collectively shunned Google for some reason they would become a drastically different company. They would probably end up a Chinese Conglomerate or something. America is a huge user base with lots of money, any corporation would find it painful to be locked out of that market place..

Did you read the whole thread, or are you just picking one of my quotes out randomly?
There was a discussion going on in this thread, i didn't make up that premise. The person/people I was responding to were advocating for the US government to cancel ALL of their contracts with Google to punish them for not wanting to be involved with military related projects.
I was arguing against that idiocy

As I said, Google is better off with the US than not, but it has already built up a name to the point that if it were to find a home in another country, it would be fine. It's too valuable of a company at this point to be bullied by some place like China. They could go anywhere in Europe, they could just go north to Canada, or even build up some other place in Asia or Latin America. They just need a host, they have the money and brains.

All empires fall. The more America isolates itself the less relevant to the world they'll become . America can keep trying to bring coal back, while the rest of the world works on renewable energy. They won't have anyone to sell that shit to.
Itll take time, but the US CAN be left behind if it's unwilling to adapt, and willing to let other countries take the lead in technology , health, science, etc

Companies like Google have helped the US be the powerhouse it is. These companies can do the same thing for other countries if the business environment becomes too hostile

 

[Madmick]

Did you read the whole thread, or are you just picking one of my quotes out randomly?
There was a discussion going on in this thread, i didn't make up that premise. The person/people I was responding to were advocating for the US government to cancel ALL of their contracts with Google to punish them for not wanting to be involved with military related projects.
I was arguing against that idiocy

As I said, Google is better off with the US than not, but it has already built up a name to the point that if it were to find a home in another country, it would be fine. It's too valuable of a company at this point to be bullied by some place like China. They could go anywhere in Europe, they could just go north to Canada, or even build up some other place in Asia or Latin America. They just need a host, they have the money and brains.

All empires fall. The more America isolates itself the less relevant to the world they'll become . America can keep trying to bring coal back, while the rest of the world works on renewable energy. They won't have anyone to sell that shit to.
Itll take time, but the US CAN be left behind if it's unwilling to adapt, and willing to let other countries take the lead in technology , health, science, etc

Companies like Google have helped the US be the powerhouse it is. These companies can do the same thing for other countries if the business environment becomes too hostile

You mean the continent whose dominant trade organization that just made up a totally bullshit reason to fine them $5bn?

You're demonstrating a typical ignorance that takes for granted all the good. The USA absolutely has bartering power to hurt Google with their contracts in retaliation, and should consider those measures. Killing all the contracts is a disproportionate response, and harmful to both sides. This is why that isn't appropriate. That doesn't mean that Google would be better off in Europe (or anywhere) if we hit back to some degree. First, these other countries don't have the same spending power we do, and second, they are all already quite a bit more hostile to corporations like Google on a financial level.

Nobody has as much to offer as home. This is called leverage. The US has plenty of it. Google doesn't hold all the cards. You're naive.

 

[Arkain2K]

Google's Plans to Create Censor-Friendly Products for China Are Even Bigger Than We Thought
By David Meyer | August 2, 2018​

​

Google isn’t just reported to be working on a censored search engine for the Chinese market—according to a new article from The Information, it’s also developing a censored news aggregation app for China. And some Google employees are reportedly not wild about this new push.

Google’s search and news services have been unavailable in China for around eight years, because of the company’s refusal to bow to the Communist Party’s censorship demands. Now, it appears the fight is over, and Google is giving in with a program codenamed Dragonfly, which includes the two reported apps.

According to The Information, the news aggregation app would use AI and algorithms to select censor-friendly stories for its users. However, as TechCrunch points out, similar apps in China, such as Toutiao—which Google is apparently trying to clone here—have at times fallen foul of the country’s censors, for promoting “pornographic and vulgar content.”

There’s also apparently an added hitch in the form of the U.S.-China trade dispute, which has created difficulty for Google in meeting with the Chinese internet censors (and which has similarly stymied Facebook’s attempt to open an “innovation hub” in the country.)

Google’s newfound willingness to hold its tongue for the Chinese market points to the difference between the ethos of Sundar Pichai, the company’s current CEO, and that of its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who pulled out of China in 2010 because they didn’t want to accede to censorship demands (and who are now the CEO and president of Google parent Alphabet).

And according to a new Bloomberg piece, a lot of Google’s employees are not at all pleased. Unidentified workers told the publication that the Dragonfly search app was a “censorship engine,” and comparable to the company’s now-abandoned Project Maven deal with the Pentagon—Maven let the military use Google’s AI technology to analyse drone footage, and some employees resigned in protest, warning that the arrangement could help mark people for death.

Per the Bloomberg report, one Google employee transferred to a different role at the company due to ethical concerns over Dragonfly. However, other workers voiced support for the program, arguing that staying out of China doesn’t “bring any positive change.”

Google said in response to a request for comment that it doesn’t “comment on speculation about future plans.”

http://fortune.com/2018/08/02/google-china-censorship-news-dragonfly/

 

[Arkain2K]

Google Struggles to Contain Employee Uproar Over China Censorship Plans
By Ryan Gallagher | August 3 2018

Google bosses were scrambling to contain leaks and internal anger on Wednesday after the company’s confidential plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China was revealed by The Intercept.

Just a few hundred of Google’s massive 88,000-strong workforce had been briefed on the project prior to the revelations, which triggered a wave of disquiet that spread through the internet giant’s offices across the world.

Company managers responded by swiftly trying to shut down employees’ access to any documents that contained information about the China censorship project, according to Google insiders who witnessed the backlash.

“Everyone’s access to documents got turned off, and is being turned on [on a] document-by-document basis,” said one source. “There’s been total radio silence from leadership, which is making a lot of people upset and scared. … Our internal meme site and Google Plus are full of talk, and people are a.n.g.r.y.”

On a message board forum for Google employees, one staff member posted a link to The Intercept’s story alongside a note saying that they and two other members of their team had been asked to work on the Chinese censorship project, code-named Dragonfly.

“In my opinion it is just as bad as the leak mentions,” the employee wrote, adding that they had asked their manager to be removed from the project because they were uncomfortable with it. Another member of the team, the employee said, had decided to quit Google in large part due to concerns about Dragonfly.

“I had a meeting with my [vice president] about the project before leaving [it]. This was a short meeting for me, because my [vice president] refused to provide any information without me basically agreeing to a verbal [nondisclosure agreement],” noted the employee. “She did reemphasize that they had good reasons to keep all that private: they didn’t want the project to leak externally! That was enough for me to fuck off [from the group working on Dragonfly].”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the backlash.

Following the disclosure on Wednesday, several new sources inside Google independently confirmed the plans to news organizations, including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, Agency France-Presse, Vice News, and Bloomberg. One source who spoke to Bloomberg characterized the project as a “censorship engine,” which they said they viewed as a betrayal of Google’s values. Bloomberg described a ferocious discussion among Google staffers, with some backing the company’s censored search proposal because they believed that boycotting the country would not “bring any positive change.”

Publicly, Google has so far stayed silent about Dragonfly. The company has refused to address dozens of reporters’ questions about the project, and has instead issued a boilerplate statement saying that it does “not comment on speculation about future plans.” One source said some members of Google’s search engine team were on a company trip to Lake Tahoe, between California and Nevada, at the time the news broke, which blindsided them and “spoiled some folks’ vacation.”

The Dragonfly project was launched in spring 2017. Since then, small teams of Google engineers have been developing a custom Android app, different versions of which have been named “Maotai” and “Longfei.” The app has been designed to filter out content deemed undesirable by China’s ruling Communist Party regime, such as information about political opponents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. The censored search will “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, according to internal Google documents.

Google previously launched a censored search engine in China in 2006, but pulled the service out of the country in 2010, citing Chinese government efforts to limit free speech, block websites, and hack Google’s computer systems. The planned relaunch would represent a stunning reversal of that decision.

The company’s censorship project is likely to draw scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted on Wednesday that he wanted to “learn more” about Google’s plans, which he said appeared “very disturbing.”

Human rights groups responded to the revelations with a chorus of condemnation. Amnesty International issued a statement calling on the internet giant to abandon the plan. “It is impossible to see how such a move is compatible with Google’s ‘do the right thing’ motto, and we are calling on the company to change course,” said Amnesty’s Patrick Poon.

The New York- and Hong Kong-based group Human Rights in China said in a statement that Google had shown willingness to “trade principles and values for access to the Chinese market.” The group added: “If Google wants to be a credible global technology leader and demonstrate its commitment to core values and responsible corporate citizenship, it has to do better than kneeling before an authoritarian party-state. In the long run, Google will lose more than its own principled employees who refuse to be complicit.”

Maya Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Google’s plans risked abetting Chinese government abuses. “That Google appears to be developing this censored version of a search engine in the midst of a harsh, nationwide crackdown on human rights in China — with the consultation of senior Chinese government officials — is alarming,” said Wang.

Google insiders say that the app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government. As of last month, its launch was pending approval from officials in Beijing, and slated for potential release in six to nine months. It is unclear whether the leaks — and the public outrage that has followed — will affect the plans. The Chinese government is unlikely to be pleased about the disclosures. State media in the country reportedly denied that Google would be launching the censored search. Either that’s a bold-faced lie, or it means that, in the wake of the revelations and controversy, Communist Party officials have decided they will block approval of Dragonfly.

Some analysts have drawn comparisons between the censorship project and Project Maven, a Google initiative to develop artificial intelligence for U.S. military drones. Project Maven sparked an internal revolt within the company, which led to Google canceling the contract. One of Google’s informal corporate principles is “don’t be evil” — a standard some of the company’s employees felt Project Maven violated.

Charlie Smith, co-founder of GreatFire.org, an organization that monitors Chinese government internet censorship, said he hoped Google employees would refuse to help develop the censored search app.

“Thank goodness somebody in Google leaked this information — that person is a true hero!” Smith told The Intercept. “Hopefully the outrage from Google employees will be enough to convince Google execs that they should not return to China, at least not like this.”

If Google engineers “really speak out about this,” Smith added, “it would be hard for the company to move forward with the plan. … They are really the key here. They must stand up for what is right. Can they really tell themselves that they do no evil?”

https://theintercept.com/2018/08/03/google-search-engine-china-censorship-backlash/

 

[Arkain2K]

Lawmakers Pressure Google Over “Deeply Troubling” China Censorship Project
Ryan Gallagher | August 4 2018

A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators is demanding that Google CEO Sundar Pichai explain the company’s plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China.

Since spring 2017, the internet giant has been developing a censored Android search app to launch in the country as part of a secretive project code-named Dragonfly, The Intercept revealed on Wednesday. The app would manipulate search results in accordance with strict censorship rules in China that are mandated by the ruling Communist Party regime, which restricts people’s access to information about political opponents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. The censored Google search has been designed to “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, according to internal Google documents.

In a letter sent to Pichai on Friday, the six lawmakers called the Google plan “deeply troubling” and said that it “risks making Google complicit in human rights abuses related to China’s rigorous censorship regime.” The letter was led by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and also signed by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

The senators write: “It is a coup for the Chinese government and Communist Party to force Google—the biggest search engine in the world—to comply with their onerous censorship requirements, and sets a worrying precedent for other companies seeking to do business in China without compromising their core values.”

They are asking Google to provide answers to multiple questions, such as “Which ‘blacklist’ of censored searches and websites are you using? Are there any phrases or words that Google is refusing to censor?” The senators want to know why Google has reversed its policy on China. In 2006, the company launched a censored search engine in the country, but ceased operating the service in March 2010, citing Chinese government efforts to limit free speech, block websites, and hack Google’s computer systems. “What has changed since 2010 to make Google comfortable cooperating with the rigorous censorship regime in China?” the senators ask.

The documents seen by The Intercept indicated that Google’s search project was being carried out as part of a “joint venture” with another company, presumably one based out of China, because internet companies providing services in China are forced by law to operate their servers and data centers in the country. The senators want more information about this, and they are asking Pichai whether Google’s relationship with Chinese company Tencent is “connected in any way with its efforts to enter the Chinese market via the custom search app?”

Inside Google, revelations about the censored search plan have triggered anger, fear, and confusion. Prior to The Intercept’s report about Dragonfly on Wednesday, only a few hundred of Google’s 88,000 employees had been briefed about the project – just 0.35 percent of the total workforce. Once the news spread through the company, Google managers quickly shut down employee access to any documents that contained information about the censorship plan. One insider said there had been “total radio silence from leadership, which is making a lot of people upset and scared.”

Google has so far declined to address the revelations. The company has issued a boilerplate statement asserting that it does “not comment on speculation about future plans.” However, now facing pressure from the group of six senators, as well as its employees, it appears unlikely that the company will be able to stay silent for much longer.

https://theintercept.com/2018/08/04/senators-pressure-google-china-censorship-dragonfly/

 

[MicroBrew]

So Google says helping the military with its A.I. program runs contradictory to Google's social responsibility. Google's mantra is " Do no Evil ".

https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/611287/google-wont-renew-its-military-ai-contract/

But The Intercept just reported that leaked minutes of a Google private meeting has Search engine head honcho discussing the implementation of a censored search Engine for China, to comply with China's regime's requirements.

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/09/google-china-censored-search-engine/

 

[Cherry Brigand]

They dropped the do no evil years ago. Maybe that's why the sat on Google+ being breached for years. Gov should fine them a billion.

 

[MicroBrew]

They dropped the do no evil years ago. Maybe that's why the sat on Google+ being breached for years. Gov should fine them a billion.

Gov. should boot them from all government contracts.
I am on the fence on whether the military's A.I. program is good or bad.

Obviously if the program helps the military take out Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taleban and other assorted islamists then I am all for it. But a program like this will ofcourse be used against any and all entities the government deems a threat. So despite the positives, the negatives probably outweigh.

 

[Otto!]

They will leave it to their subsidiary company, Cyberdine.

 

[all caps]

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I don't think Google is a very moral corporation.

 

[PEB]

Trust me they are still very active in the development. They been investing billions in AI an quantum computing. Military have a secret offices in Palo Alto an Mountain View.

They have regular meetings with Military officials. Mostly to discuss ramifications of technologies like quantum telecommunications to security.

They are really concerned about China's own massive AI, quantum computing an telecommunications development.

China already started construction of a giga size 10 billion dollar computing research lab unlike anything on earth.

https://ai.google/

https://ai.google/research/pubs/pub44292

https://ai.google/research/pubs/?area=QuantumAI

https://www.popsci.com/chinas-launches-new-quantum-research-supercenter

 

[splendica]

Helping the American military would go against their policy of destroying America.

 

[7437]

Helping the American military would go against their policy of destroying America.

source?

 

[xcvbn]

Trust me they are still very active in the development. They been investing billions in AI an quantum computing. Military have a secret offices in Palo Alto an Mountain View.

They have regular meetings with Military officials. Mostly to discuss ramifications of technologies like quantum telecommunications to security.

They are really concerned about China's own massive AI, quantum computing an telecommunications development.

China already started construction of a giga size 10 billion dollar computing research lab unlike anything on earth.

https://ai.google/

https://ai.google/research/pubs/pub44292

https://ai.google/research/pubs/?area=QuantumAI

https://www.popsci.com/chinas-launches-new-quantum-research-supercenter

America's response: Clean coal baby!!! Wooooo!!