Artificial intelligence companies that have previously been reticent to allow military use of their technology are shifting policies and striking deals to offer it to spy agencies and the Pentagon.
The deals and policy changes add to a broad shift that has seen tech companies work more closely with the Pentagon, despite some employees protesting their work contributing to military applications. “If we can do all this, we will have a world in which democracies lead on the world stage and have the economic and military strength to avoid being undermined, conquered, or sabotaged by autocracies,” Amodei wrote in the blog post.
The war in Ukraine has triggered a new interest in adapting cheap, commercially available technology like small drones and satellite internet dishes to military use. A wave of Silicon Valley start-ups have sprung up to try to disrupt the U.S. defense industry and sell new tools to the military. In 2018, Google said it would not renew a Pentagon contract providing image-analysis of drone imagery that was protested by employees. The company has continued to expand its military contracts. This year Amazon and Google were targeted by protests over Israeli government contracts by workers who said they could assist the country’s military forces.