Current Sr. Google Engineer Goes Public on Camera: Tech is "dangerous," "taking sides"
14 minute video…..
Current
Sr. Google Engineer Goes Public on Camera: Tech is “dangerous,” “taking sides”
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by Staff Report July 24, 2019
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Insider: “It’s time to decide,
do we run the technology, or does the technology run us?”
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“I really don’t buy the idea
that big tech is politically neutral.”
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“Are we going to just let the
biggest tech companies decide who wins every election from now on?”
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“I look at search and I look at
Google News and I see what it’s doing and I see Google executives go to
Congress and say that it’s not manipulated. It’s not political. And I’m just so
sure that’s not true.”
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“I have a PhD, I have five
years’ experience at Google and I just know how algorithms are. They don’t
write themselves. We write them to do what we want them to do.”
(New York City) Project
Veritas has published an on-the-record interview with an insider who works at
Google named Greg Coppola. This video interview follows a series of insider
Google reports, including internal Google documents, recently published by
Project Veritas which exposed political bias, “algorithmic unfairness,” and the use of “blacklists” at YouTube.
Coppola is a senior software engineer at Google who works on
artificial intelligence and the Google Assistant:
COPPOLA: I’ve been coding since I was
ten [years old.] I have a PhD, I have five years’ experience at Google and I
just know how algorithms are. They don’t write themselves. We write them to do
what want them to do.”
(Other brave individuals who feel compelled to expose wrongdoing they
witness can contact Project Veritas by sending an encrypted email to
VeritasTips@protonmail.com.)
“that can be dangerous…”
The insider spoke with Project Veritas because he wants people to
be aware of his concerns about technology companies’ ability to influence
politics:
COPPOLA: “Well I think we’re just at a
really important point in human history. I think for a while we had tech that
was politically neutral. Now we have tech that really, first of all is taking
sides in a political contest, which I think, you know, anytime you have big
corporate power merging with political parties can be dangerous. And I think
more generally we have to just decide now that we kind of are seeing tech use
its power to manipulate people. It’s
a time to decide, you know, do we run the technology, does the technology run
us?”
Coppola believes that Google’s political motivations have
compromised the integrity of the company’s Search and News products:
COPPOLA: “I think we had a long period,
of ten years, let’s say, where we had search and social media that didn’t have
a political bias and we kind of got used to the idea that the top search
results at Google is probably the answer. And Robert Epstein who testified
before Congress last week, um, looked into it and showed that, you know, the
vast majority of people think that if something is higher rated on Google
Search than another story, that it would be more important and more correct.
And you know, we haven’t had time to absorb the fact that tech might have an
agenda. I mean, it’s something that we’re only starting to talk about now.”
Asked about Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s testimony to Congress in
December 2018, where Pichai said Google’s algorithms are politically unbiased,
Coppola said:
COPPOLA: “First of all, I report to
Sundar of course. And I have a great deal of respect for him as a manager. I
work on the Google Assistant, which really doesn’t have a political bias.
Google Assistant is things like, hey, Google, set an alarm for nine AM, play
some music, that type of stuff… I think it’s, you know, ridiculous to say that
there’s no bias. I think everyone who supports anything other than the
Democrats, anyone who’s pro-Trump or in any way deviates from what CNN and the
New York Times are pushing, notices how bad it is.”
(Internal documents from big tech
companies can be sent to Project Veritas via secure email at
VeritasTips@protonmail.com)
“it was just a chance to work
with the best computer scientists in the world”
According to Coppola, the company became more political just
before the last presidential election:
COPPOLA: “I started in 2014. 2014 was
an amazing time to be at Google. We didn’t talk about politics. No one talked
about politics. You know, it was just a chance to work with the best computer
scientists in the world, the best facilities, the best computers and free food.
I think as the election started to ramp up, the angle that the Democrats and
the media took was that anyone who liked Donald Trump was a racist… And that
got picked up everywhere. I mean, every tech company, everybody in New York,
everybody in the field of computer science basically believed that. A small
number of people do work on making sure that certain new sites are promoted.
And in fact, I think it would only take a couple out of an organization of
100,000, you know, to make sure that the product is a certain way…
Coppola pointed out that he believes most Google employees are not
politically-driven in their work, and that the company is actually very
protective of its users’ private data despite public criticism of the company:
COPPOLA: “Most people’s job [at Google]
is not political and doesn’t involve politics. I mean there’s a vast number of
systems and a lot of them have nothing to do with politics like processing
natural language… In fact, I would say that Google actually concerns of the
assistant is taking much longer to build the assistant than it would otherwise
need to because there is such a respect at Google for privacy and for user
data. And I hope you leave this in and I hope people realize that there is
really, I would say as an insider at Google there is a lot of interest put in
taking care of people’s data and conversely it means that, you know the list of
reputations of mappings from new site to some number representing their
credibility is probably something I can access.”
The insider expressed concern about going public, but also offered
solutions for how to remedy allegations of political bias at Google:
COPPOLA:
“I think the biggest problem here is just the overall lack of transparency that
we have in our products today. Um, for example, if we had open source software,
we would know why each answer was arrived at.”
COPPOLA:
Yeah, I mean, I have a job that pays well and has other benefits like working
with very intelligent coworkers and really at the forefront of computer
science. The Google Assistant is probably the most advanced artificial
intelligence system anywhere in the world. Then for someone like me who’s been
coding since I was a kid, um, it’s hard to find a job that pushes me to the
limits the way working at Google does. But I guess I just, you know, I look at
search and I look at Google News and I see what it’s doing and I see Google
executives go to Congress and say that it’s not manipulated. It’s not
political. And I’m just so sure that’s not true. That it’s, you know, it
becomes a lot less fun to work on the product. So it affects you that much.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the thing about Google is if you leave, um, you know,
any other salary at any other company will be lower. Hmm. So I do think it’s a
sacrifice.”
COPPOLA: “I just want to say to all the
non-programmers that I really don’t buy the idea that big tech is politically
neutral, and I think we need to start incorporating that into whatever strategy
we use to have a democracy going forward.”
Project Veritas will continue to investigate political bias at big
tech companies. Insiders at technology companies like Google, Facebook, and
Twitter can contact Project Veritas via encrypted email at
VeritasTips@protonmail.com
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