The nation’s top military officer says he plans to meet with representatives of Google to explain that the company’s business with China is helping the authoritarian regime control its people and aiding the country’s military.
Companies doing business in China, like Google, are required to include in the enterprise a cell of the Communist Party, which in turn is a direct link to the Chinese military, U.S. officials say.
“That is going to lead to that intellectual property from that company finding its way to the Chinese military,” Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a forum at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., Thursday.
“And so my concern when you think about things like artificial intelligence … they’re gonna help an authoritarian government assert control over its own population,” Dunford said.
Google has come under criticism for refusing to work with the Pentagon on artificial intelligence while continuing to work with China.
“This is not about me and Google. This is about us looking at the second- and third-order effects of our business ventures in China, China’s form of government, and the impact that’s going to have on the United States’ ability to maintain a competitive military advantage and all that goes with it,” Dunford said. “I’m happy to have that debate.”
[Opinion: Google is fine playing big brother for communist China]
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan complained about Google’s unwillingness to partner with the Pentagon on ethical grounds while supporting projects in China that are “a direct pipeline” to the military.
“You’re telling me that Google, an American company, supposedly, is refusing to work with the Department of Defense but is doing work with China, in China, in a way that, at least indirectly, benefits the Chinese government?” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked Shanahan.
Shanahan replied that while technically Google hadn’t refused, it has said it will not do business with the Pentagon on certain contracts.
In October, Google announced it would not be competing for Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud-computing contract known as JEDI, citing concerns the project might conflict with its corporate values.
At the Senate hearing, Dunford said there is no doubt the work Google is doing in China on artificial intelligence is benefiting the Chinese military.
“In fact, the way I described it to our industry partners is: Look, we’re the good guys,” Dunford said. “And the values that we represent and the system that we represent is the one that will allow and has allowed you to thrive.”
At Thursday’s forum, Dunford said he is trying to impress upon U.S. companies that assisting the Chinese military with advanced technology is not in America’s national interests. In fact, such companies would be helping the 6 percent of the population that belongs to the Chinese Communist Party with its increasing Orwellian monitoring of the daily life of the remaining citizens.
“What China is able to do is identify patterns of behavior amongst people and determine who’s reliable and who’s not reliable,” Dunford said. “There is no question in my mind that China will leverage technology to assist the 6 percent of the Chinese population in controlling the other 94 percent.”
