Google Employees Are Lining Up To Trash Google's AI Ethics Council

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Almost a thousand Google staff, academic researchers, and other tech industry figures have signed a letter protesting the makeup of an independent council that Google created to guide the ethics of its AI projects. The search giant announced the creation of the council last week at EmTech Digital, MIT Technology Review's event in San Francisco. Known as the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC), it has eight members including economists, philosophers, policymakers, and technologists with expertise in issues like algorithmic bias. It is meant to hold four meetings a year, starting this month, and write reports designed to provide feedback on projects at the company that use artificial intelligence.

But two of those members proved controversial. One, Dyan Gibbens, is CEO of Trumbull, a company that develops autonomous systems for the defense industry -- a contentious choice given that thousands of Google employees protested the company's decision to supply the US Air Force with AI for drone imaging. The greatest outrage, though, has come over the inclusion of Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that opposes regulating carbon emissions, takes a hard line on immigration, and has argued against the protection of LGBTQ rights. The creation of ATEAC -- and the inclusion of Gibbens and James -- may in fact have been designed to appease Google's right-wing critics. At roughly the same time the council was announced, Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, was meeting with President Donald Trump. Trump later tweeted: 'He stated strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military. [We] also discussed political fairness and various things that Google can do for our Country. Meeting ended very well!' 'Not only are James' views counter to Google's stated values,' the letter states, 'but they are directly counter to the project of ensuring that the development and application of AI prioritizes justice over profit. Such a project should instead place representatives from vulnerable communities at the center of decision-making.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.