Google DeepMind employees demand company drops contracts with military organisations: Report

Workers of Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory and a subsidiary of Google, wrote a letter to the tech giant earlier this year asking it to drop contracts with military organisations, reported TIME.

Around 200 workers of the company signed the letter dated May 16, which did not specifically mention any military organisation but linked out to another TIME report on Project Nimbus. Project Nimbus is a contract between Google and Israeli Military Defense to supply cloud computing and AI services.

According to the report, the letter also links to other articles alleging that Israeli military uses AI services for mass surveillance and target selection for bombings in Gaza. It is also reported that Israel's weapons firms are required to buy cloud services from Google and Amazon.

There have been contentions between Google and its employees over Project Nimbus in the past as well and the recent letter by the workers in its AI division further highlights the dispute.

The letter accessed by TIME reads, “Any involvement with military and weapon manufacturing impacts our position as leaders in ethical and responsible AI, and goes against our mission statement and stated AI Principles."

The letter further added that its signatories are concerned with "ensuring that Google’s AI Principles are upheld." "We believe (DeepMind’s) leadership shares our concerns," it said.

When asked about the issue, a Google spokesperson told TIME, “When developing AI technologies and making them available to customers, we comply with our AI Principles, which outline our commitment to developing technology responsibly."

"We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services," the spokesperson added.

The letter urges DeepMind’s leaders to probe allegations that militaries and weapons manufacturers are using Google Cloud services, end access to DeepMind technology for military users, and establish a governance body to prevent future military use. However, it has been three months since the letter was circulated and Google is yet to address these issues.

According to the TIME report, a sources familiar with the situation said, "We have received no substantial response from leadership."

It is noteworthy that DeepMind, which was acquired by Google in 2014 has pledged to never work on military technology. Meanwhile, Google's Cloud business has contracts to sell its services, including AI developed inside DeepMind, to several governments and militaries including those of Israel and the United States.