Google faces backlash over defence contracts as DeepMind workers protest

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Earlier this year, a lot of Google employees staged on-campus protests against the company’s dealings with Israel. Google made its employee code of conduct stricter and even fired quite a few employees. Now, it seems like another protest is brewing at Google. According to a report by Time magazine, nearly 200 employees at Google DeepMind have expressed strong opposition to Google’s defence contracts, sparking a wave of internal dissent.

The letter, dated May 16, 2024, highlights the employees’ unease with Google’s involvement in military projects, particularly those related to AI. The report quotes the letter which notes “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.”

DeepMind’s AI principles clearly state that the company will not work on AI applications that are likely to cause “overall harm,” or help in building weapons or technology whose“principal purpose or implementation” is to cause injury.

Google acquired DeepMind almost a decade back in 2014. A key condition was that its AI technology would not be used for military or surveillance purposes. However, in the last couple of years, the AI race has dramatically intensified and DeepMind's autonomy gradually eroded, as per the report.

There have been efforts made to maintain DeepMind’s independence but the lab was eventually merged with Google Brain in 2023, bringing it closer to Google's core operations.

There was an ethics board established to oversee DeepMind's AI development but it has been largely ineffective, and was eventually replaced by Google's broader AI Principles. While these principles aim to prevent AI from causing harm, they also allow for the development of potentially harmful technologies if the benefits outweigh the risks. Moreover, they do not preclude selling Google's AI to military clients — something the DeepMind employees are strongly protesting.