Google Needs a Lesson in Patriotism
Alphabet shuns business with the Pentagon but is helping China develop artificial intelligence.
In cahoots.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
It isn’t often that America’s highest-ranking military officer publicly chastises one of America’s leading corporations for collaborating with the enemy. Yet that is what General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did by arguing that Google’s cooperation with China on artificial intelligence is effectively aiding Beijing’s ongoing military buildup.
Dunford, whose comments came in a Senate hearing and at a think-tank panel in Washington, is right to criticize Google for helping China master one of the technologies that will determine who dominates the 21st century. He has also highlighted a larger problem with Google’s behavior: A company that prides itself on seeing around the corner of history is living in a world that no longer exists.