The creeping Google militarization is beginning to lear to the massive company being termed “Big Brother Inc.” by critics. Google is increasingly positioning itself to become an indispensable U.S. military contractor, and those of a Big Brother approach to government.

The robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics has already been producing humanoid robots for the U.S. Defense Department, specifically for military use. As far-fetched as it sounds, that translates to “killer robots.” 

With Google having bought out Boston Dynamics over the past few months, Google’s broader military contracting ambitions are starting to come into better focus. 

In 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that U.S. spy agencies had been using “Google equipment as the backbone of Intellipedia, a network aimed at helping agents share intelligence.” The article also revealed that Google had a support contract with the NSA: a comment mentioned in passing that was overlooked by many.

In 2010, the Washington Post reported that Google partnered with the NSA to figure out how Chinese hackers broke into their servers. The New York Times later reported that those same Chinese hackers stole Google’s entire password system called Gaia.

There are additional reasons why the U.S. military is becoming Google’s biggest customer and best friend. First, on the surface level of pure economics, consider the military value of Google’s research and development efforts and the military contracting pipeline revenue it could represent.

Lawrence “Larry” Page, the American Business magnate and computer scientist who is the co-founder of Google, alongside Sergey Brin created Google X, which is Google’s secretive research and development lab tasked with pursuing “moon-shot” technology breakthroughs. So far, Google X is best known for its earth-bound self-driving cars and Google Glass.

But the purpose of the original “moon-shots” by the Soviet Union and America was purely military. The two Cold War superpowers had been in a “space race” to show off the technological and military supremacy to their respective rival.

Simply, America’s Cold War “moon-shot” was about winning the military space and arms race with the former Soviet Union.

Even more tellingly, the greatest application for most all of Google X’s “moon-shot” technological efforts — are military. Like drones, self-driving vehicles, and robot soldiers could enhance military surveillance and payload delivery while reducing risks to military personnel.

While American popular culture worries about how obnoxious tech hipsters with Google Glasses will be in their local Starbucks, the reality is that the primary users of the technology will be American soldiers, who the glasses will off a tactical advantage over enemy combatants. Related to this, Google’s Project Loon will likely provide a supplemental battlefield bandwidth advantage in remote areas. MOREHERE