Hundreds of Google employees are calling on CEO Sundar Pichai to refuse to make the company’s artificial intelligence tools secretly available to the Pentagon.
In an open letter to the CEO, Google employees responsible for AI systems expressed concern about the tech giant’s ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Department of Defense, saying the technology is inappropriate for “classified workloads.”
“We feel that our access to this technology creates a responsibility to highlight and discourage its most unethical and dangerous uses,” the letter said. “Therefore, we ask that you decline to make our AI systems available for sensitive workloads.”
Neither Google nor the Department of Defense immediately responded to CBS News’ requests for comment on the letter.
The employees wrote that they were concerned that if Google’s AI systems were used for military purposes, they could be used in “inhumane or extremely harmful ways.”
The letter cites lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance as examples of potentially harmful AI applications.
“Making the wrong call now will cause irreparable harm to Google’s reputation, our business, and our role in the world,” the letter added.
The Information reports that Google is negotiating an agreement with the Department of Defense to bring its AI to classified work.
OpenAI entered into an agreement with the Department of Defense earlier this year, agreeing not to use Open AI technology for domestic mass surveillance or command of autonomous weapons systems.
