Google: Our AI won't be a weapon

Google has been in hot water for the last month as details about its partnership with the US military revealed the tech titan's involvement in a clandestine, and potentially violent, program. After internal and external backlash, the company backed out of the project last week. Today, Google CEO Sundar PIchai published a new policy in response that lays out the company's ethos: From now on, it won't design or deploy AI for weapons, surveillance purposes or technology "whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights." Project Maven used Google's AI research to assist facial recognition, which may have been intended to help with military targeting. As a result, engineers petitioned the company and some reportedly quit before the tech titan announced it wouldn't renew their involvement in the project.