Earlier this week, Google deleted a 7-year-old pledge from its AI principles web page, which promised the company would not design AI for weapons or surveillance. Alongside the deletion, Google published a blog post penned by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who noted companies and governments should work together to build AI that “supports national security.”
Google made its AI weapons pledge in 2018 following the Project Maven protests, in which thousands of employees protested the company’s contracts with the U.S. military. The protestors specifically took issue with Google supplying AI for a military program that helped interpret video images and could be used to improve the accuracy of drone strikes.