The disclosure follows a report by Gizmodo, which said the artificial intelligence tech was being used to analyse drone footage.

The news site said that many of the search giant’s workers only learned of the collaboration last week via internal emails.

It added that some were “outraged”.

A spokeswoman for Google said that the tie-up involved the provision of software tools to let the US Department of Defense (DoD) make use of its TensorFlow machine learning code.

“The technology flags images for human review, and is for non-offensive uses only,” she added.

“Military use of machine learning naturally raises valid concerns.

“We’re actively discussing this important topic internally and with others as we continue to develop policies and safeguards around the development and use of our machine learning technologies.”

Although Google’s former chairman Eric Schmidt became an advisor to the Pentagon in 2016, the firm has otherwise been cautious about being linked to the US military.

It previously pulled one of its robots from a Pentagon-organised competition, despite it being the favourite to win, in part because of such concerns.

Data glut
Gizmodo identified the drone initiative involved as being Project Maven – a scheme announced last July to use computer algorithms to identify objects of concern from “massive amounts of moving or still imagery”.

The idea is to focus human efforts on sections of footage flagged for further analysis and avoid them having them having to wade through all the other hours of recorded material.

The DoD said that its immediate focus would be 38 classes of objects related to the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

“There is no ‘black box’ that delivers the AI system the government needs, at least not now,” said Colonel Drew Cukor at the time.

“The only way to do that is with commercial partners alongside us.”

Google declined to discuss its involvement further.

But the BBC understands that the algorithms it has shared were not designed for face detection, but were instead developed to identify generic objects including cars, birds and trees. It is believed that they are not being used to fly or otherwise operate the drones themselves.

Google is not the only US firm to be involved.

Chip-maker Nvidia has previously blogged about Project Maven and is also understood to be working with the DoD on the effort.

One expert said the relatively cheap cost of operating drones such as the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper had led to a glut of video material.

“The vast quantities of data produced by the US Air Force and CIA – as well as allies like the UK who operate these [drones] in conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan – have long outstripped the processing and exploitation capacity of the traditional human-centric intelligence processing organisations within these countries,” commented Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

“As a leading developer of AI technology, Google is an obvious choice for the DoD to partner with, albeit one whose employees and shareholders might be less than 100% enthusiastic about the prospect of working with the military.”

Mr Bronk added that the UK’s Royal Air Force had an even more acute shortage of imagery intelligence analysts, and would probably wish to share access to Google’s AI tech if that became possible.

The BBC has asked the Ministry of Defence for comment.

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Source: BBC

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Defence Secretary James Mattis said “all appropriate action” was being taken in all branches of the armed forces.

The scandal began when nude photos of female Marines were published online by male colleagues.

But fewer than 10 female Marines have come forward to make a formal complaint, a top Marine official said.

General Robert Neller said he hoped more women would come forward to help the investigation.

The scandal initially broke when current and former members of the US Marines were discovered sharing naked photos of female servicewomen on Facebook, in a group called “Marines United”.

It reportedly had over 30,000 members before being shut down. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has begun an investigation into the practice in the Marines.

Since then, it has emerged that other anonymous online message boards have been soliciting and publishing hundreds of nude photos of female personnel from other armed forces.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference on Friday, General Neller said he did not know how many Marines were involved in the posting, or how many have been targeted.

“If you’re participating in this type of behaviour in any way shape or form – you’re not helping me or your Marine Corps,” he said.

“You know we claim that being a Marine is a special title and something that you earn. There’s honour here. But there is no honour in denigrating a fellow Marine in any way shape or form.”

One online message board seen by the BBC – which remains publicly accessible – indicates that such practices extend throughout the military.

Many posts were requests containing clothed photos of women taken from their public social media profiles, asking for nude photographs of them.

Often, such posts included names and personal details of the women, including where they were stationed.

“Just heard [name redacted] and her bf [name redacted] broke up,” reads a comment on 19 December from an anonymous user on a post that appears to involve personnel at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

“Maybe he would post some.”
Another post from a different anonymous user on 12 September reads: “Any wright patt wins? I’ll start off with some.” The post refers to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

The user then posts self-taken images of a woman in a bikini, and then topless. There are many more explicit images on the message board.

On Wednesday, two women who said they were victims spoke out publicly alongside their lawyer, urging others to come forward.

“I can tell you that this exact behaviour leads to the normalisation of sexual harassment and even sexual violence,” said Erika Butner, 23, who served in the Marines for four years until last June.

The US Department of Defense said in a statement that it had issued “policy guidance” to prevent and deal with “sexual harassment and hazing”.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is due to hold a hearing on the issue next week.

Marines United’s activity was first uncovered by The War Horse, a non-profit news organisation run by Marine veteran Thomas Brennan.

Some of the photos are believed to have been taken surreptitiously. Other images are thought to have been consensual, but posted without permission.

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Source: BBC

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