SOCOM needs Google's artificial intelligence -- here's why SOFREP

Earlier this month, Google employees made a stir in Silicon Valley when a number of them chose to resign from their positions in protest after their company agreed to work with the Defense Department on a new artificial intelligence initiative. Overwhelmingly, the media presented this gesture as an ethical stand -- with tech professionals doing their part to stem the tide of Terminator robots roving a nearby battle space, making complex decisions about who lives and who dies with seemingly no human supervision. These departing Googlers, then, were heroes -- begging society to ask hard questions about what we're capable of doing and whether we should do it at all. Of course, the reality of the situation didn't quite sync up with the dramatic headlines and lofty narratives presented in petitions and Op-eds. The truth of the matter is, Project Maven is indeed a Google partnered artificial intelligence endeavor, but it never aimed to make decisions about pulling any triggers.