Andrew Ng is “very happy” Google has removed AI weapon pledge
Andrew Ng, the founder and former leader of Google Brain, supports Google’s recent decisions Drops on not building weapon AI systems.
“We are extremely pleased that Google has changed its stance,” NG said in a stage-on-stage interview with TechCrunch at the Military Veteran Startup Conference in San Francisco.
Earlier this week, Google removed its seven-year-old pledge from its AI Principles webpage. In addition to deleting, Google has published a Blog post Written by Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis. He said businesses and governments should work together to build AI “support national security.”
Google I pledged to make AI weapons pledge in 2018 Following the project, thousands of employees protested against the company’s contract with the US military following Maven’s protests. The protesters were particularly problematic with Google providing AI for military programs that could be used to help interpret video images and improve the accuracy of drone strikes.
However, Ng was confused by the Project Maven protesters, but he told an audience consisting primarily of veterans.
“Frankly, when Maven’s project falls… a lot of you are out of the air, so many of you are willing to shed blood for our country to protect our country.” said Ng. “So how can American companies refuse to help our own services people who are fighting for us?”
NG didn’t work with Google when the Project Maven protest occurred, but it played a key role in shaping Google’s efforts on AI and neural networks. Today, NG leads AI-focused venture studios and AI funds, and frequently speaks about AI policies.
Ng later said he was grateful that two AI regulatory efforts – the rejected California SB 1047 bill and Biden’s overturned AI executive order are no longer working. He repeatedly argued that both measures would slow America’s open source AI development.
According to Ng, the real key to American AI security is to allow the US to technically compete with China. He said that AI drones “will revolutionize the battlefield completely.”
It’s not just the former Google executive who spread the message. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is currently spending his days Lobbying in Washington, DC and purchasing AI drones To compete with China. His company, White Stork, may eventually supply those drones.
Although Ng and Schmidt seem to support military AI use, this topic has split ranks within Google for years.
Meredith Whitaker, now president of Signal, led the Maven protest in 2018 while working as an AI researcher at Google. When Google pledged not to renew its Project Maven contract, Whittaker said she was happy with the decision, saying, “The company is focusing on the ‘company’.You shouldn’t be in war business. ”
She’s not the only Googler to object. Former Google AI researcher and former Nobel Prize winner Jeffrey Hinton Global governments are being asked to ban and regulate the use of AI with weapons. Another long-established Google Executive Jeff Dean – now the Deep Mind’s Chief Scientist – Signed a letter opposed to the use of machine learning in autonomous weapons.
In recent years, Google and Amazon have fallen into new scrutiny about their military work. Project Nimbus will contract with the Israeli government. Employees from both cloud providers staged Sit-ins last year to protest Project Nimbus.
Pentagons and military forces around the world have new appetites for using AIthe Pentagon’s top AI officer previously told TechCrunch. With Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, many are trying to bounce back their investments through military partnerships.