GOOGLE

Action Figures

For the better part of a year, Google workers have been organizing in secret. On Monday, they announced the fruit of their efforts: the Alphabet Workers Union. 

It’s open to Alphabet employees and contractors (the latter makes up more than 50% of the ~260,000-person workforce). It’s also affiliated with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), one of the country’s largest unions. 

• By EOD Tuesday, membership had almost doubled...from about 230 to ~535. 

We spoke with Raksha Muthukumar, member of AWU and software engineer at Google, for the inside scoop. 

Hot-button

AWU breaks from a typical union in that it’s non-contract—and its first priority isn’t contract negotiations. It’s primarily borne out of workers’ desire to shape the direction and application of the tech they create. 

Major concerns include: the end uses of artificial intelligence and machine learning, facial recognition, search engine tech, and more. And after Google fired Timnit Gebru, co-lead of its Ethical AI team, workers are worried about the future of AI ethics. 

As for Google’s response to the announcement? “Of course our employees have protected labor rights that we support,” Kara Silverstein, director of people operations, told us in a statement. “But as we’ve always done, we’ll continue engaging directly with all our employees.” 

• When asked whether the company would acknowledge the union, Google did not immediately respond. 

A long time coming

AWU is “an extension of work that’s been bubbling up at Google for years,” says Muthukumar—from the 2018 walkout protesting the company’s mishandling of sexual harassment to last summer’s petition to cancel police contracts. 

Also paving the way: Google workers’ past successes in shaping tech use cases. After workers organized against Project Maven (a Pentagon contract that provided automated imagery analysis for military drones) and Project Dragonfly (a prototype of a censored search engine for China), the company terminated both ventures. 

• “[It’s] hard to quantify the kind of retaliation that happened because those workers spoke up,” says Muthukumar—but now, the union can offer protections. 

Muthukumar hopes AWU can encourage other “cross-company affected unions”—for example, between full-time employees and contract warehouse workers at Amazon.

Bottom line: AWU’s launch is another sign that tensions over the applications of emerging tech are here to stay. 

DRONES

The Drones Are Coming

On the last Monday of 2020 (double ew), the FAA dropped a buzzer beater. It issued two much-anticipated final rules that will clear the way for drone deliveries. 

“Remote ID,” a digital license plate system, will require drones to broadcast their location and the pilots’ whereabouts via radio signal. Starting next year, new mass-produced drones will need to carry the comms equipment onboard, and from 2023 on, all drones will need to have this broadcasting equipment. 

• Alphabet’s drone unit came out Winging against the rule, saying 1) internet-based tracking would suffice and 2) Remote ID “will have unintended negative privacy consequences.” 
• Old models will need expensive retrofits to comply, limiting the options of hobbyist flying communities. 

The second big rule

The FAA is allowing drone dark mode (night flight) and remotely piloted operations in more populated areas. The rules apply to the 203,000 FAA-certified remote pilots, with plenty of other caveats. For example, in the hardware dept, you’ll need anti-collision lights to fly at night, and zero exposed rotors to fly over people or cars.  

SPONSORED BY PANASONIC

Warning: This Event May Cause Extreme FOMO

FOMO is a spectrum. There’s the virtual baby shower kind of FOMO, and then there’s the kind you get when an event comes along that will forever change the way you think about innovation.

That event, ladies and gents, is Panasonic CES 2021.

You’ll experience what it really means to invest in technological innovation that will inspire and amaze, focusing on five important areas including: supply chain, smart mobility, immersive entertainment, sustainability, and lifestyle. 

So whether you geek out on self-driving cars or get excited about unbelievable technological advancements in kitchen appliances (read: microwaves that can grill the perfect steak), then Panasonic’s CES has got you covered. 

But it’s not all steak and games. At Panasonic’s CES, you’ll see how emerging technologies are constantly moving us forever forward, toward a better life, and a better world. 

Don't get FOMO. Sign up for your Panasonic CES pass today.

CRYPTO

Banks Hop on the Chain

^ The crypto community, and the price of ethereum and bitcoin, reacting to an interpretive letter posted by one of the U.S.’ largest banking regulators on Monday.

In said letter, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) clarified that federally chartered banks can run cryptocurrency nodes and use blockchains to validate, store, and record “permissible payment activities.” That means financial institutions can use stablecoins for cross-border payments and interbank settlements. 

• Compared to existing financial infrastructure (Swift, Fedwire, etc.), distributed technologies could make payment settlements “cheaper, faster, and more efficient,” the OCC said. 
• The U.S. is letting the private sector build real-time payment rails, Brian Brooks, Acting Comptroller of the Currency, noted, as other governments build their own digital currency systems.  

One thing’s for certain: This decision paves the way for more blockchain adoption. 

+ On the other hand: The crypto community has pushed back on the proposed rulemaking of the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which would heighten know-your-customer requirements for unhosted wallets. 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: More than half of all cars sold in Norway last year were battery electric vehicles—and VW overtook Tesla in sales there. 

Quote: “It’s an extraordinary grind.”—Waymo boss John Krafcik, describing the challenge of robotaxi rollouts to the FT. 

Read: Rest of World takes on India’s booming dark data economy. 

SPONSORED BY UBS

A year of renewal and recovery sounds pretttttty nice. And that’s exactly what UBS thinks 2021 is gonna be. To help investors figure out the hopeful year ahead, UBS is having a roundtable discussion tomorrow with Dr. John Whyte, Chief Medical Officer at WebMD, on how the latest vaccine news might impact your portfolio. Add it to your cal here.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Aeva, a Mountain View lidar startup, raised a new round of $200 million ahead of its SPAC. This could be a make-or-break year for the automated driving SPACs. 
• Jack Ma isn’t missing—he’s just lying low, reports CNBC. 
• Amazon purchased its first aircraft to expand air cargo operations. 
• National Grid’s venture firm has invested in 16 machine learning-focused startups. 
• The U.S. enacted the first law to preserve the first moon landing’s historic site.
• Nijeer Parks, the third known Black man to be wrongfully arrested based on facial recognition, is suing the police, prosecutor, and the City of Woodbridge, N.J., per NYT. 

TRIVIA

CES kicks off Monday. As we recently noted, the flagship show in consumer tech is taking place virtually this year (for obvious reasons). Let’s go on a trip down memory lane. 

Take today’s quiz here.

HUMAN V. MACHINE

OpenAI is releasing two new GPT-3 models. DALL·E creates images from text; while CLIP maps images into categories described in text. DALL·E generated these images when fed the text prompt, “an armchair in the shape of an avocado.” 

OpenAI

Be honest: Is DALL·E better at drawing than you? 

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• What to expect at the first all-virtual CES 
• Emerging Tech Brew’s year in review: part one
• Emerging Tech Brew’s year in review: part two