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Politics continues to leak into the US workplace with hundreds of Google employees sending a letter to the company’s CEO demanding that he not sign a deal with the Pentagon to use Google’s artificial intelligence for classified work.
It comes two months after rival AI company Anthropic was dropped by the Defense Department for requesting a similar restriction.
The letter was signed by more than 600 Google employees, many from its elite DeepMind AI lab, according to The Washington Post. It asked the company’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, not to enter into any agreement with the Defense Department that allowed for uses of the company’s AI that are classified. The letter argued that such work would prevent Google representatives from knowing how the company’s technology was used.
“We want to see AI benefit humanity; not to see it being used in inhumane or extremely harmful ways. This includes lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance but extends beyond,” the workers wrote in the letter.
“The only way to guarantee that Google does not become associated with such harms is to reject any classified workloads. Otherwise, such uses may occur without our knowledge or the power to stop them,” the letter said.
AI becomes part of modern warfare
The letter was ultimately unsuccessful, as the deal went through anyway, but came as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to modern warfare, triggering debate in the tech industry over whether AI companies or their employees should have a say in how the military uses their technology.
Pentagon leaders have recently asserted that it must have freedom to use commercial AI technology for “all lawful uses,” a phrase officials have said allows flexibility in different situations while still following US law and military procedures.
It comes in the wake of Donald Trump’s threat to bomb “every” bridge and power plant in Iran, an action that experts have said would violate international law. The Trump administration’s strikes on boats it alleges were carrying drugs have also been questioned.
“Human lives are already being lost and civil liberties put at risk at home and abroad from misuses of the technology we’re playing a key role in building,” the Google employees wrote in their petition.
Anthropic, maker of the popular chatbot Claude, saw its technology rapidly integrated last year into US military systems for helping to sort through data and identify potential targets.
The company was abruptly barred from all work with the Defense Department in February, however, after it sought to add a contractual clause to ensure that its technology would not be used for mass surveillance and to power lethal autonomous weapons.
The government and Anthropic are now arguing in court over whether the Pentagon acted legally in cutting off the company.
Google reduces limits on AI usage
The letter from Google employees cites a report from tech news outlet the Information earlier this month, which said the company was in negotiations with the Pentagon for a similar deal to that of OpenAI.
The letter urges Google to refuse any and all classified work to ensure that its technology isn’t used in ways that might harm civil or human rights.
It’s not the first time Google has faced such an employee protest, in 2018, the company decided not to renew a deal with the Pentagon that saw its AI software used to recognize objects in drone imagery after hundreds of employees signed a petition demanding an end to the work.
Google introduced a pledge that its AI technology would never be used for weapons or surveillance after the 2018 protest. But in recent years the company has actively sought more military contracts.
Last year, it dropped its limits on use of AI for weapons and surveillance, and signed a deal for the Defense Department to use its Gemini AI technology.
