Ethical Analysis of Google's Drone Program: A Detailed Case Study

This case study delves into the ethical considerations surrounding Google's decision to provide artificial intelligence for the Pentagon's Project Maven drone program, which aimed to expedite the analysis of drone footage through automated image classification. The decision led to employee resignations driven by ethical concerns regarding the use of AI in warfare. The study applies four classical ethical theories—utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and contract theory—to analyze the situation, revealing that the project is unethical under each framework. Utilitarianism finds the project ethically wrong due to the misuse of AI in warfare; deontology deems Google's decision immoral; virtue ethics highlights Google's failure to uphold moral virtues; and contract theory points to the broken legal and ethical contract between Google and its employees. The study concludes by emphasizing the importance of ethics in guiding behavior and offers recommendations for ethical decision-making, such as refraining from using drone programs for warfare and maintaining legal contracts with employees. Desklib provides students with access to this and many other solved assignments and past papers.

Running head: IT ETHICS
IT Ethics: Google employees resign in protest of Google/pentagon drone program
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1
IT ETHICS
Introduction
Ethics can be defined as the branch of philosophy, which solely involves the
defending, recommending and systematizing of the correct and incorrect conduct. Ethics can
be sub divided to three main areas, which are normative ethics, applied ethics and finally
Meta ethics (Crane & Matten, 2016). The Meta ethics solely concerns with the hypothetical
meanings or references of the moral propositions and how all of these truth values could be
easily determined. The next area is the normative ethics that concerns with the useful means
to determine a significant moral action course. The final area of ethics is the applied ethics
that deals with the fact that a particular individual is permitted or obligated to do within any
specific situation or action domain. There are distinct four classical ethical theories, which
are the utilitarianism theory, the deontology theory, the virtue ethics and finally contract
theory (Minus, 2013). This essay outlines a detailed discussion regarding the popular case
study of Google pentagon drone program. The four classical theories will be applied with
respect to the case study. Proper recommendations will also be provided for the case study,
with significant justifications.
Discussion
Case Study
Google Inc. has taken the decision to provide artificial intelligence to a specific
controversial military pilot program, called Project Maven. The major objective of this
Project Maven is to speed up analysis of the drone footage by automatic classification of
images of various people as well as objects (Bright et al., 2018). After this decision of Project
Maven, at least a dozen of Google employees have resigned for protesting on the
organization’s continuous involvement with Project Maven. The frustrations of all the

2
IT ETHICS
resigning employees started from the ethical concerns for the utilizations of AI or artificial
intelligence within the drone warfare.
Utilitarianism Theory
The very first theory of these four classical theories is the Utilitarianism theory. This
particular theory can be defined as the normative theories, which substantially state regarding
the most significant action of a typical situation (Hayry, 2013). This situation should
eventually increase or maximize utility. This type of utility could be anything that means, this
could be for the society or even for a person. Any such utility-based situation could be
strongly referred as or even could be the core portion of this utilitarianism theory.
Utilitarianism theory could also be defined as the conequentialism theory and this
subsequently states regarding the several consequences of an action, which is correct as well
as incorrect. Unlike, the remaining form of consequentialism theories such as the form of
egoism, this specific theory of utilitarianism is considered to divide the several interests of all
human beings equally (Mill, 2016). For this particular case study of Google pentagon drone
program, the only utility is that the Project Maven is for the betterment of military. The
images of the people and objects are classified with this drone program. However, this is
incorrect in terms of utilitarianism theory, since the use of artificial intelligence in drone
warfare is ethically wrong and thus the employees of Google have resigned in protest. Hence,
this case study is termed as unethical in respect of utilitarianism theory. The recommendation
in respect to this theory is not to use the drone program for warfare and thus unethical act
could be stopped.
Deontology Theory
The next theory is Deontology theory. This could be defined as the specific ethical
position of normative that subsequently helps to judge over the morality of a particular

3
IT ETHICS
activity after following the several rules. The deontology theory can be contrasted to the epic
consequentialism theory as well as the pragmatic ethics (Chakrabarty & Bass, 2015). The
typical theory can also be described as the rule based or obligation base ethics and the basic
moral obligations of all situations arise from every kind of internal and external source such
as the rules set, which is absolutely intrinsic to the ethical naturalism or the universe. Any
particular individual obtains his or her first knowledge from the surroundings or Universe.
For the particular case study of Google pentagon drone program, the decision of Google Inc.
is unethical since utilization of drone images in warfare is morally incorrect (Paquette,
Sommerfeldt & Kent, 2015). According to this deontology theory, the significant morality of
this scenario can be solely judged based on an activity, i.e. the situation will be deciding that
whether this is wrong or right. Here, in this scenario, since Google has taken the decision to
do this unethical deed, it is ethically incorrect as per deontology theory. The recommendation
in respect to this theory is to follow the laws and rules both ethically and morally.
Virtue Ethics
The third theory is the virtue ethics. This is yet another normative ethics theory, which
emphasizes over the several virtues of minds and characters (Van Hooft, 2014). This ethics
theory is generally referred to the typical characteristic, trait and attribute such as action of
sentiments and habits. This virtue theory eventually states that all the virtues such as
generosity and honesty are not just the tendency to do or decide what is honest or generous,
nor are these the characters or traits that are morally desirable or valuable. There are even
several other activities, which are eventually working with the various emotions or emotional
reactions, expectations, perceptions, attitudes and finally sensibilities (Russell, 2013). For this
particular case study of Google pentagon drone program, it is unethical since, Google has
taken the decision by not maintaining virtue ethics. The decision was morally incorrect and

4
IT ETHICS
hence it is unethical. The recommendation in respect to this theory is to take the decision
morally and only after thinking about the employees.
Contract Theory
The final theory of these four classical theories of ethics is contract theory. This
particular theory is stating that the people, who are staying together in any specific society
according to any the agreement that will be strongly establishing the moral as well as political
behavior rules or regulations (Singer, 2013). For this particular case study of Google
pentagon drone program, a legal and ethical contract is broken between Google Inc and its
employees and the case study is unethical (Mill, 2016). Moreover, the political background of
the organization was also getting affected due to this decision and more than a dozen of
employees have protested for the cause. The recommendation in respect to this theory is to
maintain the legal contract with the employees.
Conclusion
Therefore, conclusion can be drawn that ethics is the set of concepts or principles,
which guide any individual to determine, what behaviour harms or helps surrounding people.
This is commonly utilized interchange ability with the morality and this is often utilized more
precisely for meaning the various moral principles of any specific groups, traditions and
individuals. Most of the individuals are often confused regarding ethics for behaving in
accordance to the various social conventions, laws and religious beliefs. Ethics is responsible
for seeking to resolve the several questions that are related to the human morality by the
definition of few perceptions like good or evil, right or wrong, justice as well as crime and
virtue or vice. The several moral principles, which solely govern the behaviour of any
specific person for conducting the activities, are collectively termed as ethics. The moral duty
as well as obligation is the core discipline for knowing what is correct or incorrect. The above

5
IT ETHICS
essay has clearly outlined the case study of Google pentagon drone program. Several Google
employees have resigned after Google Inc. decided to launch their pentagon drone program.
The entire case study is well explained with the help of these four classical theories.
Moreover, proper recommendations and justifications are also provided here for
understanding the case study of Google drone program.

6
IT ETHICS
References
Bright, P., Amadeo, R., Palladino, V., Amadeo, R., Bright, P., & Dunn, J. et al. (2018). May |
2018 | Ars Technica. Retrieved from https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-
employees-resign-in-protest-of-googlepentagondrone-program/
Chakrabarty, S., & Bass, A. E. (2015). Comparing virtue, consequentialist, and deontological
ethics-based corporate social responsibility: Mitigating microfinance risk in
institutional voids. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), 487-512.
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Hayry, M. (2013). Liberal utilitarianism and applied ethics. Routledge.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383).
Routledge.
Minus, P. M. (Ed.). (2013). The ethics of business in a global economy (Vol. 4). Springer
Science & Business Media.
Paquette, M., Sommerfeldt, E. J., & Kent, M. L. (2015). Do the ends justify the means?
Dialogue, development communication, and deontological ethics. Public Relations
Review, 41(1), 30-39.
Russell, D. C. (Ed.). (2013). The Cambridge companion to virtue ethics. Cambridge
University Press.
Singer, P. (Ed.). (2013). A companion to ethics. John Wiley & Sons.
Van Hooft, S. (2014). Understanding virtue ethics. Routledge.