US military chief says tech giants should work with Pentagon, not China
- US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford tells Halifax security forum US and its allies are ‘the good guys’
- Military chief says companies that share intellectual property with Chinese entrepreneurs are essentially sharing it with the Chinese military
The top US military officer said on Saturday that it is problematic that American tech companies do no want to work with the Pentagon but are willing to engage with the Chinese.
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford told the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that the US and its allies are the “good guys”.
“I have a hard time with companies that are working very hard to engage in the market inside China, then don’t want to work with the US military,” he said. “I just have a simple expression: “We are the good guys.”
Earlier this year, thousands signed a petition asking Google’s chief executive to cancel Project Maven, which provides the Pentagon with the company’s artificially intelligent algorithms to interpret video images and improve the targeting of drone strikes.
Google later said it would scuttle the project, according to published reports.
Dunford avoided mentioning Google by name, but said companies that share intellectual property with Chinese entrepreneurs are essentially sharing it with the Chinese military.