Around 200 employees at Google DeepMind, or roughly 5 per cent of the whole division, have urged the company to end its contracts with military organisations over concerns that its AI technology may be used for warfare.
According to Time magazine, a letter the employees signed and circulated in June, they aren't concerned about any particular conflict or geopolitical region.
All the same, the letter highlighted reports about the Israeli military using AI for mass surveillance and bombing precise locations in Gaza, with Israeli weapon firms mandated by the government to purchase cloud services from Google and Amazon.
The letter also pointed out tensions between Google's AI division and its cloud business, which sells AI services to militaries.
The company's flagship Google I/O conference earlier this year witnessed pro-Palestine protesters demonstrating against Lavender, "Where’s Daddy?" software, the "Gospel" AI programme -- all of which used allegedly by Israel for precision bombing in Gaza, and Project Nimbus, a cloud platform deal between the country and Google.
Even though the use of AI in warfare has been spreading fast, Google, when it acquired DeepMind in 2014, was asked by the lab's leaders to never use the AI for military or surveillance purposes.
"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 that circulated inside Google DeepMind said.
According to Time, the letter urged the leadership to investigate claims of use of Google cloud services by militaries and weapons manufacturers and to establish a new governance body to prevent future use of the AI by military clients.
The magazine reported that despite calls for action, there has been "no meaningful response" from Google so far.
Representative Image. Source: Unsplash
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