Google Putting AI Technology to Work Evaluating Military Drone Images

Google is not usually shy about touting its accomplishments in the artificial intelligence space, but one win that company does not seem particularly keen on broadcasting is a recent pilot project with the U.S. Department of Defense. In a widely quoted report this week Gizmodosaid it had learned about Google quietly partnering with the DoD on a project to help the Pentagon develop technology for analyzing footage gathered by aerial drones. Google is working with a Defense Department group called Project Maven that was established last year to accelerate the military's adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities for analyzing big data sets. One of the primary missions for the group--as described in this memo--is to find technology the speed up the evaluation process for the massive number of photos and videos that U.S. military drones are gathering daily in support of the Defeat-ISIS campaign. The Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT)--as Project Maven is also known--has been tasked with providing the military with computer vision algorithms for better detecting and classifying objects in drone footage.