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 Gen. 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.
In June 2018, following an outcry from thousands of employees, Google ended its participation in the Pentagon's so-called Project Maven. That initiative focuses on improving U.S. targeting capabilities by using AI to identify objects captured in countless hours of surveillance footage from drones. In October, Google then dropped out of the competition for the Pentagon's cloud-computing contract, on grounds that the project was incompatible with the company's values.