Google's Defense Dilemma

The company wants the military’s business. Most of its employees don’t

- By Joshua Brustein and Mark Bergen

In early November several dozen experts from the American military-industrial complex—including senior officers, defense contracting executives, and think tank advisers—gathered at a hotel a few blocks from the Capitol to discuss artificial intelligence software. While everyone ate lunch, General Jack Shanahan, head of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center—JAIC, or the “Jake,” as it’s known—sat onstage in his dress uniform and chatted with two civilians in suits: Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive officer, and Kent Walker, its chief legal officer.

The appearance of a high-ranking military officer was a coup for Google. Over the previous two years, the company and its parent, Alphabet Inc., have been criticized relentlessly for being insufficiently patriotic. Its perceived infractions: One, the 2017 decision to open an artificial intelligence lab in Beijing when many in the U.S. had come to see the development of AI as a national priority on par with the Manhattan Project. Two, the 2018 decision, in the face of pressure from employees, to withdraw from Project Maven, a secret government program to use commercial AI software to analyze images from military drones.

In March, General Joseph Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, complained to a Senate panel that Google was “indirectly benefiting the Chinese military.” Then in July, Peter Thiel, President Trump’s most prominent Silicon Valley supporter, called Google “seemingly treasonous” and suggested it had been infiltrated by Chinese spies. The following day, Trump more or less endorsed this view, praising Thiel on Twitter and promising an investigation. (The administration walked this back later, saying it had no concerns about Google’s work in China.)