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- US President Donald Trump tweeted that he met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday.
- "Just met with Sundar Pichai, President of Google, who is obviously doing quite well. He state strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. military, not the Chinese Military…" Trump tweeted.
- News that Pichai would be speaking with the president had been previously unannounced before the tweet.
- According to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday, Pichai was set to meet with top military official, General Joseph Dunford, whose comment about Google’s artificial intelligence work in China "indirectly benefit[ing] the Chinese military” initiated the discussion.
US President Donald Trump tweeted that he met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday.
"Just met with Sundar Pichai, President of Google, who is obviously doing quite well. He state strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. military, not the Chinese Military…" Trump tweeted.
In a second tweet Trump said that the two also "discussed political fairness and various things that Google can do for our Country. Meeting ended very well!"
News that Pichai would be speaking with the president had been previously unannounced before the tweet. According to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday, Pichai was set to meet with top military official, General Joseph Dunford, whose comment about Google’s artificial intelligence work in China "indirectly benefit[ing] the Chinese military” initiated the discussion.
Last week, a Google spokesperson said, “We are not working with the Chinese military."
Google — which opened an AI lab in Beijing in late 2017 — says on its website that its AI activities in China focus on "education, research on natural language understanding and market algorithms, and development of globally available tools."
Google has come under pressure by US lawmakers following the company’s decision last year not to renew its contract to build AI tools for the Pentagon, known as Project Maven. The decision came amid intense internal backlash at Google from employees who condemned the military work.
Google also bowed out of a potential cloud contract with the Pentagon last October worth billions. Around the same time, the company was working a search engine for the Chinese market — a project the company has since said it has "no plans to launch."
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Source: Business Insider – nbastone@businessinsider.com (Nick Bastone)