Project Maven

After cancelling its contentious Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud contract solicitation in July, the US Department of Defense (DoD) promised a followup request for proposals to provide cloud services for national defense under a less catchy acronym, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC). The Pentagon at the time said…

In 2018, when Google employees found out about their company’s involvement in Project Maven, a controversial US military effort to develop AI to analyze surveillance video, they weren’t happy. Thousands protested. “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” they wrote in a letter to the…

Three years after its involvement with the military’s controversial Project Maven program led to employee strife within its walls, Google reportedly hopes to once again work with the Pentagon. According to The New York Times, the company is “aggressively” pursuing the Defense Department’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability cloud contract. A…

Steven Cherry Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum's podcast, Fixing the Future. IBM is a remarkable company, known for many things—the tabulating machines that calculated the 1890 U.S. Census, the mainframe computer, legitimizing the person computer, and developing the software that beat the best in the world at…

(CNN)A police officer died Tuesday after shots were fired outside the Pentagon building, according to three law enforcement sources. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which oversees the security of the Pentagon, confirmed the officer's death in a tweet late Tuesday, hours after reports first surfaced. "The Pentagon Force Protection Agency…

The frightening power of Big Tech is one of the few issues Democrats and Republicans still agree on, even if they don’t agree on the specifics. Conservatives often claim to be victims of a type of social media censorship that doesn’t exist, while Democrats tend to focus on corporate power…

I’m always a bit relieved when a tech company’s algorithm seems to fall short of mind reading. It’s somewhat reassuring when a so-called smart ad displays hideous shoes I would never buy just because I once bought a different pair from the same brand, or when Facebook suggests I befriend…

Employees at tech giant Google are reportedly demanding that the company stop selling software to law enforcement agencies. Employees believe the company should be ” joining the millions who want to defang and defund these institutions.” Recode reports that more than 1,600 Google employees have signed an internal petition calling…

Roundup Welcome to this week's roundup of AI-related news. The US military wants AI tech to help find a COVID-19 vaccine: The US Department of Defense plans to spend about $3.8bn – given by Congress through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – to fund AI research…

A funny thing has been happening on YouTube. For some reason, certain combinations of Chinese characters have been immediately removed from the platform within a few short seconds. No warning or reason would be given to the Mandarin-speaking moderatees. And it's not like they had been foul or freaky in…