Dear Digital Media, Computing, Communications and Information Researchers,
(Apologies for cross-posting)
As you may be aware, 3100+ Google employees signed a
<https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/technology/googleletter.pdf>letter
to CEO Sundar Pichai in early April, asking the company to withdraw
from a contract with the DoD to contribute to Project Maven, a
Pentagon program aimed at using machine learning to analyze massive
amounts of drone surveillance footage and to label objects of
interest for human analysts. (You can find helpful background and
commentary from EFF
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/should-google-really-be-helping-us-military-build-ai-systems>here.)
The Google employees have since been joined by a wider community of
tech workers, who have issued their own statement for signature
<https://www.coworker.org/petitions/tech-should-not-be-in-the-business-of-war>here.
A small coalition of academics/researchers including myself have now
drafted a letter of our own in support of Google and other tech
workers, and we are hoping that you might join us as signatories.
(Co-authors are Peter Asaro, Lilly Irani, and Lucy Suchman.
The letter is now open for signatures (there is an entry form below
the letter):
https://www.icrac.net/open-letter-in-support-of-google-employees-and-tech-workers/
And the first press article to mention the letter just came out:
https://gizmodo.com/google-employees-resign-in-protest-against-pentagon-con-1825729300
Thank you for your consideration, and please forward this to other
lists and researchers who might be interested.
With regards,
Peter Asaro
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