Google DeepMind workers urge company to drop military contracts, TIME reports

Nearly 200 workers at Google DeepMind, or roughly 5% of its overall headcount, signed a letter dated May 16 calling to drop its military contracts, TIME’s Billy Perrigo reports, citing a copy of the document reviewed by the publication and five people with knowledge of the matter. The letter states that workers are “concerned by recent reports of Google’s contracts with military organizations… 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 says its signatories are concerned with “ensuring that Google’s AI Principles are upheld,” and adds: “We believe leadership shares our concerns.” 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.”