Google DeepMind employees signed a letter urging the company to cancel contracts with military organizations. according to a report by Time. The document was prepared on May 16 this year. About 200 people have signed the document, which is five percent of DeepMind’s total employees.
For the uninitiated, DeepMind is one of Google’s AI divisions, and the letter states that accepting military contracts is against the company’s own AI guidelines. The letter was sent as internal concerns began to surface that the artificial intelligence lab was selling technology to military organizations through cloud contracts.
according to TimeGoogle’s contracts with the US military and the Israeli military provide access to cloud-based services that include artificial intelligence technology developed by DeepMind. The letter does not refer to any specific military organization, and the staff emphasize that it “does not follow the geopolitics of any specific conflict.”
Since 2021, reports have slowly revealed the scope of the technology provided by Google (and Amazon) to the Israeli government. Project Nimbus. This is far from the first time Google employees have publicly objected to their work being used to support politically-rich military goals — the company fired dozens of workers who spoke out against Project Nimbus earlier this year.
“Any association with the military and weapons manufacturing affects our position as leaders in ethical and responsible AI and is contrary to our mission statement and stated AI principles,” DeepMind’s letter said. It should be noted that Google’s slogan used to be “don’t be evil”.
The letter further asks DeepMind executives to ban military users from accessing its AI technology and to create a new internal governing body to prevent the technology from being used by the military in the future. Google has yet to respond specifically to the letter, according to the four employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We haven’t had any meaningful response from management,” he said, “and we’re getting more and more frustrated.”
Google responded Time reports that it is suitable With AI principles. The company says the contract with the Israeli government “is not aimed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads related to weapons or intelligence services.” However, his partnership with the Israeli government was broken a lot of research in recent months.
Google He bought DeepMind in 2014but under the promise that its AI technology would never be used for military or surveillance purposes. For many years, DeepMind was allowed to operate fairly independently from its parent company, but the burgeoning AI race has changed that. The lab’s leaders have spent years seeking greater autonomy from Google. but it was rejected in 2021.
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