Drone warfare and deceptive AIs sure don’t sound
“good.”

Don’t be evil.

Since 2000, this phrase has served as a motto-of-sorts for
Google. It was even the first sentence in Google’s Code of Conduct
– emphasis on was. On Friday Gizmodo reported that, sometime near
the end of April or the beginning of May, Google removed “don’t be
evil” almost entirely from their Code of Conduct. It was only
included once, in the very last sentence.

This lack of inclusion might seem small, but it can also be seen
as the latest sign that Google may be shifting its moral
priorities. And given that the company now provides far more than
just answers to our most important (or silliest) questions, that
shift could spell trouble for the future of humanity.

Now that Google is in this position of influence over our lives,
will the company use its power primarily for good or for evil? Here
are three signs pointing toward the latter.

Project Maven Good and evil are subjective, of course, and one
person’s “evil” may be another’s morally gray area. Still, helping
drones kill people seems pretty firmly on the darker side of the
ethical spectrum, and it’s one of Google’s recent side
projects.

In March, news broke that Google was helping the U.S.
Department of Defense with Project Maven, an initiative to build
artificially intelligent drones to use in war. Thousands of Google
employees protested the partnership with a petition. Last week some
even resigned in protest.

Still, Google is forging ahead with Project Maven, and as
employees told Engadget, the company seems to be getting more and
more interested in military operations, and less interested in what
its employees think.

They are prediction engines that constantly refine a
theory about who you are and what you are going to do or want next.
Together, they create an universe of data for each one of us.
However, these predictions have a cost, which is discussed by Eli
Parise  in his book, The Filter Bubble  using
screenshots from Google searches done by two of his friends, Scott
and Daniel. Both searched for the word Egypt; while Daniel got as
first results the public demonstrations happening at the time,
Scott’s results didn’t have any signs of them on the first
page.

Deceptive AI Lying is another moral gray area, and it’s one that
Google seems to be getting more comfortable navigating. Not only
did employees tell Engadget that Google wasn’t as transparent with
them as it used to be, the same goes for the company’s relationship
with the public.

Earlier this month, the company demoed its Google Assistant’s
new Duplex feature – an AI that can make tedious calls on a user’s
behalf. Allegations that the demo might have been “faked” have
since cropped up, but even if it wasn’t, some say the tech is
deceptive, as the AI never identifies itself as non-human during
the demo call.

“Google’s experiments do appear to have been designed to
deceive,” Thomas King, a researcher at the Oxford Internet
Institute’s Digital Ethics Lab, told TechCrunch in reference to the
demo. “[E]ven if they don’t intend it to deceive, you can say
they’ve been negligent in not making sure it doesn’t deceive.”

Yossi Matias, Google’s vice president of engineering, did tell
CNET post-demo that the AI would “likely” let people know it’s an
AI once the software rolls out. We’ll believe it when we see
it.

The Selfish Ledger Last week, The Verge obtained access to a
video circulated internally at Google in 2016. Titled “The Selfish
Ledger,” the video depicts a future in which Google doesn’t just
collect data on users, but uses that data, ultimately with the goal
of controlling peoples’ behavior.

When The Verge reach out to Google for comment, a spokesperson
didn’t deny the creepy factor, but asserted that the whole thing
was merely theoretical:

We understand if this is disturbing – it is designed to be. This
is a thought-experiment by the Design team from years ago that uses
a technique known as ‘speculative design’ to explore uncomfortable
ideas and concepts in order to provoke discussion and debate. It’s
not related to any current or future products.

Still, it’s not hard to see how Google could technically create
the Selfish Ledger. Additionally, the video notes that the goal
would be to align people’s actions with “Google’s values,” such as
environmental sustainability. If Google’s values changed, though,
so could the direction in which the Selfish Ledger guides
users.

Of course, Google does still have a lot going for it on the
“good” side of the equation: the company donates money and
resources toward projects to help the environment, provide children
with educational opportunities, and support disadvantaged
communities.

However, Google is so powerful that if it decides “don’t be
evil” is no longer a goal worth pursuing, who knows how much damage
it could do? For now, let’s just hope as the company continues to
grow, its conscience doesn’t shrink.