Google DeepMind workers protest over Israeli military contracts
Google DeepMind workers protest over Israeli military contracts
The intro:
Researchers at Google’s AI arm DeepMind, continue to raise alarm bells over the potential military applications of their work, particularly in relation to contracts with the Israeli government.
According to sources, at least 200 employees at Google DeepMind have expressed deep reservations about their parent company's reported defense contracts, in particular its $1.2billion agreement to supply Israel with cloud computing services called Project Nimbus.
The controversy came to light when an internal letter, dated May 16, began circulating within the organization. The memo, signed by a significant number of staff members, highlighted growing unease about the company's alleged involvement with military organizations.
The letter points to reports that the Israeli military uses AI for mass surveillance and to select bombing targets in Gaza, with Israeli weapon firms mandated by the government to purchase cloud services from Google and Amazon.
Further down:
The situation is particularly sensitive given the history between DeepMind and its parent company. When the AI lab was acquired by Google in 2014, assurances were made that its technology would never be used for military or surveillance purposes.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the brave souls that stand up for what is right.
Hopefully it goes better than when Unity internally resisted against military contracts. Their response to us was to restrict how we could communicate, stall until we lost steam, fire select people for code of conduct, and freeze any internal discourse that got too anti military but let the pro military ones run wild
Google has been retaliating against anyone who protests Project Nimbus. They even called the cops on a group of protesters for doing a sit-in in a public commons, then fired everyone without hesitation.
A lot of the No Tech For Apartheid members are also part of the union, so they're extra motivated to go after them
Sounds like it is not going to go better :/ I hope they can keep up the fight
unfortunately military contracting makes a lottt of money
And another relevant article:
Google DeepMind employees ask the company to stop providing AI tech to the military
Edit: And a podcast No Tech for Apartheid w/ Mohammad Khatami & Gabi Schubiner
Google: Be Evil
Well that's the next round of layoffs sorted then
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