I had to read an article for my HONRS class, and it got me thinking about Silicon Valley in general. Here’s the link: (https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/why-the-military-must-learn-to-love-silicon-valley-pentagon-google-amazon/)

According to the article, Silicon Valley could be the key to new military technology, which I find surreal. Especially interesting is that the old address of the tech company Theranos, for which U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis was a board member, is on Page Mill Road. I’ve passed that building more than a thousand times on my way through Palo Alto, where my high school is.

Attacks on the US have expanded and changed because of technological advancements—some having to do with the social media and machine learning. “From biotechnology and nanotechnology to quantum computing and artificial intelligence (ai), rapid technological change is giving U.S. adversaries new capabilities and eroding traditional U.S. intelligence advantages. The U.S. intelligence community must adapt to these shifts or risk failure as the nation’s first line of defense.” (Zegart & Morell) For example, Russia’s attack on the 2016 election used social media to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, sow divisions in American society, and boost public support for one presidential candidate over another.” While the US had information on Russia’s effort to undermine the election, they did not understand the full extent of the damage that was caused through interference using social media.

To help combat these new kinds of attacks, the military wants to join forces with SV, but a partnership will not work. Too many big SV companies are “defined by an ethos of agility and innovation,” and the Pentagon is apparently very old fashioned in terms of tech. For example, one of the most advanced fighter jets, the F-35, was first conceived in the 1990s. Also, the Navy still uses Windows XP, which is 14 years old and “defunct”.

SV and Big Tech have been interacting with the US military and police forces for years–though not always amicably. In 2018, the US DoD set up Defense Innovation Unit Experimental in SV, hoping to use a relationship with tech companies to hold onto its international military superiority. One major conflict between the two parties is that the tech world emphasizes a certain level of anonymity and data privacy that the US military has less respect for. For example,  “In recent years, the most prominent stand-off was when Apple refused to help the FBI break into an iPhone linked to the 2015 terrorist attack and mass shooting in San Bernardino, California” (https://www.ft.com/content/541f0a02-ea27-43a4-b554-96048c40040d)