In 2018 word broke out that Alphabet Inc’s Google, reacting to employee outrage, would not renew its contract with the Pentagon for Project Maven. Project Maven involved AI analysis of aerial drone imagery and Google employees claimed this association with warfare violated their “do no harm” principle. Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre reports on the struggle to control AI in his new book Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, and says that Big Data and the U.S. government must find ways to work together if the U.S. is to retain its superpower status in the fierce competition to develop and implement these game-changing technologies.
About the author/speaker:
Paul Scharre is the Vice President & Director of studies at CNAS. Scharre previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He led the Department of Defense working group that drafted the DoD Directive 3000.09, which established the department’s policies on autonomy in weapon systems. While at the DoD he led efforts to establish policies on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance programs and directed energy technologies. Prior to joining the OSD, he served as a special operations reconnaissance team leader in the Army’s 3rd Ranger Battalion and completed multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is an award-winning author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and his first book, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War won the 2019 Colby Award. Scharre has published a vast number of articles from The New York Times to Politico, and has appeared on multiple television networks from CNN to Fox News. He holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London and an MA in political economy and public policy and a BS in physics from the University of Washington in St. Louis.
Part of the Technology Today Series
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