Under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta is in the lead in the world of military technology. Literally.
Last month, In a joint declarationThe social media and technology giant has announced that he was working with the Defense entrepreneur and Uriril to develop virtual reality devices that will deploy artificial intelligence to train members of the military service.
According to The Wall Street JournalWho interviewed the founder of Andundil, Palmer Luckey, the devices include “new robust helmets, glasses and other portable devices which offer an experience of virtual reality or augmented reality”. The point of sale has reported:
The system, called Eagleeye, will transport sensors that improve the hearing and the vision of soldiers – detecting drones to fly miles or by observing hidden targets, for example. It will also allow soldiers to operate and interact with the weapons systems powered by AI. Andundil’s autonomy software and META AI models underlie the devices.
But the agreement, and the impatience of Meta to wet his beak under the apparently endless tap of American defense expenses, raises a question to consider. That is to say: a company that has been linked to various disinformation scandals, even admit at a given time that its platform was used by violent extremists to promote genocidal propagandaHave such access and such influence in the American army formation?
In Comments in Bloomberg Last week, Meta technology director Andrew Bosworth described a “silent majority” within the technological industry wishing to continue these projects:
Andrew Bosworth, Meta Platforms Inc. technology director, said that “tides had turned” in Silicon Valley and that made him more pleasant to the taste for technological industry to support the efforts of the American army. There has long been a “silent majority” that wanted to continue defense projects, Bosworth said in an interview with the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. “There is a much stronger patriotic foundation than I think that people grant the Silicon Valley credit,” he said. The Silicon Valley was based on military development and “there is really a long story here that we hope to come back, but it is not even the first day,” added Bosworth.
For the record, that the story of Bosworth speaks – which includes the development of nuclear weapons by Silicon Valley – is not as brilliant as it suggests. In fact, the book by journalist Malcom Harris, “Palo Alto: a story of California, capitalism and the world”, “ Aid to the chronicle of death and looting which historically supported the relationship between Silicon Valley and the defense industry.
And the meta itself has been used several times as a tool to promote propaganda and disinformation. In 2018, the company publicly recognized That its leaders did not do enough to prevent the spread of hatred speech which helped fuel the Rohingyas genocide living in Myanmar. And in 2019, A report by the Bipartite Senate concluded The fact that various social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, had been used by Russian officials to repress black vote in 2016 for the benefit of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The fact that Meta is Currently faced with the control of the Senate on allegations, he sought to develop censorship tools for the autocratic regime of China In the past, certainly does not inspire confidence that patriotism is its guiding light. A Meta spokesperson minimized the development by the company of these tools Comments at Washington PostSaying that the news had been “widely reported a decade ago” and that the company “finally chose not to pass with the ideas we had explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019.” Nevertheless, one could say that Meta has a record for agitation to maintain human and civil rights which makes her foray into defense technology for an anti -democratic trump administration all the more annoying.
It is not difficult to imagine a number of horrible things a virtual reality military helmet could train its users to do in the hands of a Trump administration led by a man who) trivially uses political propaganda against his perceived enemies, stranger And domesticB) is opposed to efforts to anchor the discriminatory prejudices of artificial intelligence toolsand c) a threatened to deploy the armed forces against American citizens.
Instead of an essential regulation designed to curb artificial intelligence, Americans should close this meta partnership closely, perhaps to ensure that it is not deployed in a way that undermines human rights and civil society – Just as our previous president warned AIIn bad hands, could do it.