Google Chief Pichai Visits Pentagon to Revive AI Drone Project

Sundar Pichai, Google Chief Executive recently paid a visit to US Military headquarters Pentagon, during his trip to Washington. The visit was seen as a move to ease tensions, which has put a hold on a challenging project to analyze drone video, developed by Google for US Military Intelligence.

Tech giant chief, Sundar Pichai met military officials at the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, the Defense Department directorate. The department oversees the artificial intelligence drone system known as Project Maven.

Earlier Google has worked with the US Defense Department to develop the Project Maven, where Artificial Intelligence or AI is used to automatically tag buildings, cars and other objects in videos recorded by drones flying over conflict zones. But from June this year, Google stopped working on it because of an uprising from employees, who were against the work, that will help the military to track and kill enemies more efficiently. Google faced a widespread backlash from more than 3,000 of its workers, who addressed an open letter to Pichai declaring, “Google should not be in the business of war”.

On being asked about the recent development and visit by Google Chief, a Defense Spokesperson said, “We do not comment on the details of private meetings. Department leaders routinely meet with industry partners to discuss innovative technologies. These meetings support continuing dialogue aimed at solving future technology challenges”. On the other hand, Google did not respond immediately about the visit.

The secret visit also signifies Google want to maintain good relations with Pentagon and don’t afford to lose lucrative military contracts. Project Maven, is Google’s first big AI partnership with the Pentagon, who felt that Google should have done a better job. Though Google earlier said it has and would continue, to work with defense leaders on “cyber security, training, military recruitment, veterans' health care, and search and rescue”, which Pichai posted in a blog post.

The decision of Google to terminate the contract on Project Maven also attracted sharp criticism from lawmakers, in particular, the Republicans. Bob Work, the former deputy secretary of defense who helped to launch the Project Maven last year, said “Google created a big moral hazard for itself by saying it doesn’t want to use any of its AI technology to take human life. But they didn’t say anything about the lives that could be saved”.

Now with new developments and movements, which also indicates that there must be some agreement on either side, to move forward with the Project Maven.