How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google

Fei-Fei Li is among the brightest stars in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence, somehow managing to hold down two demanding jobs simultaneously: head of Stanford University's A.I. lab and chief scientist for A.I. at Google Cloud, one of the search giant's most promising enterprises. Yet last September, when nervous company officials discussed how to speak publicly about Google's first major A.I. contract with the Pentagon, Dr. Li strongly advised shunning those two potent letters. "Avoid at ALL COSTS any mention or implication of AI," she wrote in an email to colleagues reviewed by The New York Times. "Weaponized AI is probably one of the most sensitized topics of AI -- if not THE most. This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google."