Google's Work in China is Not a Security Risk, White House Says (engadget.com) 46
An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier this month, Facebook board member and billionaire investor Peter Thiel accused Google of working with China's government. Today, The Wall Street Journal reports that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he and President Trump have no national security concerns about Alphabet's work in China. Thiel used the stage at National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC to call for the FBI and CIA to investigate Google's China ties. Thiel specifically cited Google's work on AI. But the same day Google confirmed that it killed plans for its controversial search engine, Dragonfly. The timing raised suspicion, and Trump tweeted that his administration would "take a look." "The president and I did diligence on this issue, we're not aware of any areas where Google is working with the Chinese government in any way that raises concerns," Mnuchin said today. He noted that Google continues to work with the US Department of Defense and that its work with China is "very, very limited."
White house does not say that (Score:1)
Wall street journal says that Steve Mnuchin says that Donald trump says that AI work is not a threat.
Re: (Score:2)
Wall street journal says that Steve Mnuchin says that Donald trump says that AI work is not a threat.
So it's settled then. Everything is on the up and up.
Re: (Score:1)
Wall street journal says that Steve Mnuchin says that Donald trump says that AI work is not a threat.
My (a professor of mathematics in Differential Equations and Optimal control) used to have a saying: Never involve Artificial Intelligence where Natural Stupidity will suffice.
Re: (Score:2)
Comparing China to Japan??? Are you kidding. Japan is one of our closest allies. Japan is not with flaws, but Japan is a democratic nation with free press, religion, and a government elected by its people. Whatever Japan's ambitions are, Japan is not actively trying to supplant our military and economic position in the world.
Oh', unlike China, Japan also does not send its ethnic minorities by the hundreds of thousands to concentration camps for "reeducation."
Re: Is China a friend or foe? (Score:2)
"Only when you don't understand how beneficial it is for US and how scary it is for them."
Yeah, it's totally super duper beneficial to offshore our entire industrial base to our biggest geopolitical rival.
The benefits include impoverishing tens of millions of formerly working- and middle-class Americans; and seriously impairing our technical capacity for national defense.
Winning!
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Yes, they put a gun to our head and said, "take this money and pay for your deficits." What choice did we have?
"Is China friend or foe" is a broken question. China is a powerful sovereign nation with ambitions of global power and influence... to be in the future what we are *now*. But China is also our largest trading partner and vital to our economy; we're their largest trading partner and vital to their economy.
That's a relationship that's fraught with risk, but China snapping up US government securiti
The rarest bird in Washington DC: (Score:2)
an *actual* deficit hawk.
Translation: It's a very high security risk (Score:2)
Always remember, this WH lies. Continually. Every day.
Security risk to who? (Score:1)
Security risk to the US or to China? I think since Snowden we know for a fact that willing or unwilling, Google is a front for the NSA.
Not worried about China (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't live in China. I do live in the USA and I am far more concerned about Google's "good deeds" in the USA being a security risk for people in the USA.
There's more to be concerned about than that. (Score:1)
Google operates on a lot of territories. In some absolutely anything goes, there are no protections so Google can do whatever it wants. In others they have to cater to legal requirements and cens