10-16-2018, 10:43 PM
*** 17-Oct-18 World View -- Amazon's Jeff Bezos says America must be defended, while Google repudiates its 'Do No Evil' policy
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Amazon's Jeff Bezos says that America must be defended
****
![[Image: g181016b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g181016b.jpg)
Jeff Bezos
At a time when employees of high tech companies like Google and
Microsoft are adopting holier-than-thou attitudes about defending the
United States of America, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said on Monday that
Amazon is going to work with the Pentagon, and that other high-tech
companies should do the same. He said in an interview:
<QUOTE>"If big tech companies are going to turn their back on
US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble.
We are going to continue to support the DOD and I think we
should."<END QUOTE>
In recent months, Google has been almost enthusiastic in its
willingness to provide technology to the Chinese government and the
Chinese military, while at the same time management has given in to
demands that Google not supply technology needed by the US military to
defend the country.
Bezos acknowledged that Donald Trump is unpopular among some workers,
and particularly expressed disapproval of Trump's immigration policy,
but pointed out that this proves why America is still the best in the
world:
<QUOTE>I like this country. I know everybody is very
conflicted about the current politics and so on. This country is
a gem.
There aren't other countries where everybody is trying to get in.
I'd let them in if it were me. I like 'em, I want all of them
in. But this is a great country and it does need to be
defended."<END QUOTE>
Amazon is in the process of bidding for a major DoD contract call "The
Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative," or JEDI, a $10 billion
development project that will make a cloud computing and storage
platform available to all of DoD.
Last week, Google issued a statement saying: "we are not bidding on
the JEDI contract because first, we couldn’t be assured that it would
align with our AI Principles...." This might actually be a blessing
in disguise. Google has said that it will accede to China's demand
that all cloud passwords for Chinese citizens and businesses will be
made available to the Chinese government and military, and this would
represent a possible security risk to US DoD data on Google's servers.
As a Senior Software Engineer, I've worked on development of these
extremely large, complex systems, and I'm aware how easy it is for
bugs and systemic failure to permit data and services to be hacked.
Microsoft is being pressured to move in the same direction as Google.
A recent letter by employees describes Jedi as "a secretive $10
billion project with the ambition of building 'a more lethal' military
force overseen by the Trump Administration," and concludes,
"Microsoft, don’t bid on JEDI." However, Microsoft management has not
yet acceded to these demands.
Fortunately, there are still some American companies not being run by
children. Amazon is expected to be the lead contender for Jedi, but
Oracle and IBM are also expected to bid, and Microsoft may do so as
well. Wired and BBC and TechCrunch and Medium
****
**** Google repudiates its 'Don't Be Evil' conduct clause, and sides with China
****
When Google was launched in 1998, it's unofficial slogan was "Don't be
evil." It was a corporate principle that "you can make money without
doing evil," and "Don't be evil" was part of the company's official
code of conduct until this year.
With no fanfare, Google removed "Don't be evil" from its code of
conduct sometime between April 21 and May 4, when it simply
disappeared from the Google web site.
Shortly after that, in May, Google announced that would not renew its
contract with DoD for Project Maven, which provides AI technology for
analyzing drone footage, because its employees objected to doing any
work for the American military.
But in December of last year, Google announced that it would open a
state of the art AI development center in Shanghai, where the most
advanced AI technology would be made available to the Chinese
government and the Chinese military.
The biggest public scandal this year occurred when word leaked out in
July that Google for almost two years had 200 programmers working on
an advanced AI search engine for China called Dragonfly that would
detect users who made requests that violated Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) censorship rules, and would make personal identifying
information about such users available to the Chinese government and
Chinese military.
Google has refused comment about Project Dragonfly, saying that it's
an experimental system, with no current plans to deploy it. But in
fact, Google's search engine chief, Ben Gomes, told an internal
meeting in July that the plan was to launch the search engine as soon
as possible — and to get it ready to be "brought off the shelf and
quickly deployed" once approval from Beijing was received.
On Monday of this week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, an American who was
born in India, defended Project Dragonfly. He said that Project
Dragonfly will still be able to answer "well over 99% of the queries”
put to it and that “there are many, many areas where we would provide
information better than what’s available." I'm not even sure that he
understood the message he was sending with that remark, but it implies
that the other 1% would be subject to arrest by China's police.
As China continues to prepare to launch a war against the United
States, it's hard to avoid the impression that Google has already
chosen the side that it wants to win that war, and it's not the United
States.
And somebody ought to tell Sundar Pichai that those same
super-intelligent weapon systems that Google is helping the Chinese
military to build will also be used against his native India. Perhaps
that thought never occurred to him.
And finally, Chinese employees working in America should realize how
dangerous Google's policy is for them personally. During World War
II, Japanese Americans were interned. After 9/11, Muslim Americans
were jailed without trial. The path that Google is on will adversely
affect all Chinese-Americans, and an anti-Chinese public mood could
materialize overnight. Gizmodo (18-May) and Gizmodo (1-Jun) and CNBC (13-Dec-2017) and NY Times (16-Aug) and The Intercept (9-Oct) and Washington Post
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Amazon, Jeff Bezos,
Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative, JEDI,
Google, Project Maven, Project Dragonfly, China,
Ben Gomes, Sundar Pichai
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Amazon's Jeff Bezos says that America must be defended
- Google repudiates its 'Don't Be Evil' conduct clause, and sides with China
****
**** Amazon's Jeff Bezos says that America must be defended
****
Jeff Bezos
At a time when employees of high tech companies like Google and
Microsoft are adopting holier-than-thou attitudes about defending the
United States of America, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said on Monday that
Amazon is going to work with the Pentagon, and that other high-tech
companies should do the same. He said in an interview:
<QUOTE>"If big tech companies are going to turn their back on
US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble.
We are going to continue to support the DOD and I think we
should."<END QUOTE>
In recent months, Google has been almost enthusiastic in its
willingness to provide technology to the Chinese government and the
Chinese military, while at the same time management has given in to
demands that Google not supply technology needed by the US military to
defend the country.
Bezos acknowledged that Donald Trump is unpopular among some workers,
and particularly expressed disapproval of Trump's immigration policy,
but pointed out that this proves why America is still the best in the
world:
<QUOTE>I like this country. I know everybody is very
conflicted about the current politics and so on. This country is
a gem.
There aren't other countries where everybody is trying to get in.
I'd let them in if it were me. I like 'em, I want all of them
in. But this is a great country and it does need to be
defended."<END QUOTE>
Amazon is in the process of bidding for a major DoD contract call "The
Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative," or JEDI, a $10 billion
development project that will make a cloud computing and storage
platform available to all of DoD.
Last week, Google issued a statement saying: "we are not bidding on
the JEDI contract because first, we couldn’t be assured that it would
align with our AI Principles...." This might actually be a blessing
in disguise. Google has said that it will accede to China's demand
that all cloud passwords for Chinese citizens and businesses will be
made available to the Chinese government and military, and this would
represent a possible security risk to US DoD data on Google's servers.
As a Senior Software Engineer, I've worked on development of these
extremely large, complex systems, and I'm aware how easy it is for
bugs and systemic failure to permit data and services to be hacked.
Microsoft is being pressured to move in the same direction as Google.
A recent letter by employees describes Jedi as "a secretive $10
billion project with the ambition of building 'a more lethal' military
force overseen by the Trump Administration," and concludes,
"Microsoft, don’t bid on JEDI." However, Microsoft management has not
yet acceded to these demands.
Fortunately, there are still some American companies not being run by
children. Amazon is expected to be the lead contender for Jedi, but
Oracle and IBM are also expected to bid, and Microsoft may do so as
well. Wired and BBC and TechCrunch and Medium
****
**** Google repudiates its 'Don't Be Evil' conduct clause, and sides with China
****
When Google was launched in 1998, it's unofficial slogan was "Don't be
evil." It was a corporate principle that "you can make money without
doing evil," and "Don't be evil" was part of the company's official
code of conduct until this year.
With no fanfare, Google removed "Don't be evil" from its code of
conduct sometime between April 21 and May 4, when it simply
disappeared from the Google web site.
Shortly after that, in May, Google announced that would not renew its
contract with DoD for Project Maven, which provides AI technology for
analyzing drone footage, because its employees objected to doing any
work for the American military.
But in December of last year, Google announced that it would open a
state of the art AI development center in Shanghai, where the most
advanced AI technology would be made available to the Chinese
government and the Chinese military.
The biggest public scandal this year occurred when word leaked out in
July that Google for almost two years had 200 programmers working on
an advanced AI search engine for China called Dragonfly that would
detect users who made requests that violated Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) censorship rules, and would make personal identifying
information about such users available to the Chinese government and
Chinese military.
Google has refused comment about Project Dragonfly, saying that it's
an experimental system, with no current plans to deploy it. But in
fact, Google's search engine chief, Ben Gomes, told an internal
meeting in July that the plan was to launch the search engine as soon
as possible — and to get it ready to be "brought off the shelf and
quickly deployed" once approval from Beijing was received.
On Monday of this week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, an American who was
born in India, defended Project Dragonfly. He said that Project
Dragonfly will still be able to answer "well over 99% of the queries”
put to it and that “there are many, many areas where we would provide
information better than what’s available." I'm not even sure that he
understood the message he was sending with that remark, but it implies
that the other 1% would be subject to arrest by China's police.
As China continues to prepare to launch a war against the United
States, it's hard to avoid the impression that Google has already
chosen the side that it wants to win that war, and it's not the United
States.
And somebody ought to tell Sundar Pichai that those same
super-intelligent weapon systems that Google is helping the Chinese
military to build will also be used against his native India. Perhaps
that thought never occurred to him.
And finally, Chinese employees working in America should realize how
dangerous Google's policy is for them personally. During World War
II, Japanese Americans were interned. After 9/11, Muslim Americans
were jailed without trial. The path that Google is on will adversely
affect all Chinese-Americans, and an anti-Chinese public mood could
materialize overnight. Gizmodo (18-May) and Gizmodo (1-Jun) and CNBC (13-Dec-2017) and NY Times (16-Aug) and The Intercept (9-Oct) and Washington Post
Related Articles:
- Google is repeating the mistakes that IBM made in helping the Nazis (06-Oct-2018)
- Trump blocks Broadcom acquisition of Qualcomm over national security (14-Mar-2018)
- Huawei scandal exposes potential 'Cyberwar Pearl Harbor' from China (14-Oct-2012)
- New report reveals massive cyber war attack by China's army (20-Feb-2013)
- Major defense contractor QinetiQ hacked for years by China (06-May-2013)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Amazon, Jeff Bezos,
Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative, JEDI,
Google, Project Maven, Project Dragonfly, China,
Ben Gomes, Sundar Pichai
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
