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Workers at Google DeepMind Push Company to Drop Military Contracts

Nearly 200 DeepMind workers signed a letter urging Google to drop military contracts, fearing AI misuse and violations of the company’s own rules.

Nearly 200 workers inside Google DeepMind, the company’s AI division, signed a letter calling on the tech giant to drop its contracts with military organizations earlier this year, according to a copy of the document reviewed by TIME and five people with knowledge of the matter. Shirts read "Drop Project Nimbus" as students set up an encampment in Berkeley, California, on April 25, 2024.Tayfun Coskun—Anadolu/ Getty ImagesWhen DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014, the lab’s leaders extracted a major promise from the search giant: that their AI technology would never be used for military or surveillance purposes. She told employees that DeepMind would not design or deploy any AI applications for weaponry or mass surveillance, and that Google Cloud customers were legally bound by the company’s terms of service and acceptable use policy, according to a set of notes taken during the meeting that were reviewed by TIME.

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