Dana Mathewson, with hat tip to Eddie Engebretson

This article came my way a bit late, due to some of us old retired folks being busy as [insert your favorite "busy as" saying here]. It's from Aug. 8, and from the WaPo, no less. It's an opinion piece by Palmer Luckey, who is the founder and chief technology officer of Anduril Industries and the founder of Oculus VR; and Trae Stephens, who is Anduril Industries’ chairman and a partner at Founders Fund. This piece brings up some important considerations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are right: A global leader in artificial intelligence will emerge, achieving enormous international clout and the power to dictate the rules governing AI. As Americans working in the technology industry, we disagree with those leaders only about which country that should be.

The world is safer and more peaceful with strong U.S. leadership. That requires the U.S. government to maintain its advantage in critical technologies such as AI. But doing so will be difficult if Silicon Valley’s rising hostility toward working with Washington continues. In June, Google — acceding to a protest letter signed by about 4,000 employees — announced that it would not renew a Pentagon contract for an AI program called Project Maven when it expires next year.

Other Silicon Valley companies, such as Microsoft and Amazon , have recently faced internal and external criticism for providing tools that aid U.S. law enforcement or border control.

Increasingly, Silicon Valley seems to think it runs the whole country. We've been hearing about their desire to control speech in this country. Not good, folks!

Please read the entire article. It isn't long. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/silicon-valley-should-stop-ostracizing-the-military/2018/08/08/7a7e0658-974f-11e8-80e1-00e80e1fdf43_story.html?utm_term=.ddec3a6908cf

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