Google Reportedly Won't Renew Military Artificial Intelligence Contract Due to Backlash

According to a report by Gizmodo, Google has decided not to renew its controversial contract for Project Maven with the Department of Defense. The project involved analyzing drone footage using artificial intelligence with the ultimate goal of automatically classifying images of objects and people. The contract is set to expire in 2019, and the decision not to renew was announced internally during a weekly meeting by Google Cloud chief Diane Greene, who added that the company will announce new ethical principles surrounding artificial intelligence and the military. Three sources who were at the meeting told Gizmodo that Greene attributed Google's decision to let the contract expire "because the backlash has been terrible for the company." She added that the decision to embark on the project had been made "at a time when Google was more aggressively pursuing military work."