On The Technological Republic, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska.
n April 2018, a group of Google employees launched an internal revolt. They were outraged that their company, long associated with the lofty mission of “organizing the world’s information,” was involved in a far grittier enterprise: helping the U.S. military analyze drone surveillance footage. The program, known as Project Maven, was designed to improve targeting accuracy in combat zones. To the protesting employees, this wasn’t just another government contract—it was complicity in warfare. More than four thousand signed an open letter to the ceo, Sundar Pichai, declaring that “building this technology to aid the U.S. government in military surveillance—and potentially lethal outcomes—is not acceptable.” Within weeks, Google caved, announcing that it would not renew the contract. An article in the radical magazine Jacobin celebrated the decision as a “victory against U.S. militarism.”
Continue reading the entire piece here at The New Criterion (paywall)
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Brian C. Anderson is the editor of City Journal.
Photo by Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images
