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At least 200 employees at DeepMind are unhappy with Google’s disclosed defence contracts. According to Time, the workers circulated an internal letter in May to express their displeasure.
The letter, dated 16 May, says that the undersigned are worried about “Google’s contract with military organizations,” citing news articles about the tech giants’ contracts to provide AI and cloud computing to the Israeli military.
The letter states that “any involvement with weapons and military manufacturing affects our position as leaders of ethical and responsible AI and goes against our stated AI Principles and mission statement.”
The memo, while only a small part of the organization’s staff, hints at a cultural clash between Google, which acquired DeepMind in 2014, and whose technology Google pledged would never be used to military or surveillance purposes.
