Deepmind employees in the United Kingdom are seeking defense deals for union, challenge and Israel’s ties

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Google DeepMind employees in the United Kingdom are seeking to unite to challenge the company’s decision to sell artificial intelligence technologies to defense and relations groups with the Israeli government.

About 300 AI Arm employees in London, led by the British Nobel Prize winner, Sir Dimis Hasabis, have sought to join the Telecommunications Workers Union in recent weeks, according to three people who have been informed of this step.

This effort creates a new pressure on DeepMind that her father pays to his company Find commercial uses For strong artificial intelligence, with Hassabis recently proposed that companies in democratic countries should work together to support national security.

The transition to unionise follows the increasing discontent with the company after Google has dropped in February not to develop artificial intelligence technologies “causing or may cause harm in general”, including weapons and monitoring.

Three people involved in the Drive Syndicate said that the media reports indicate that Google is selling its cloud services and artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli Ministry of Defense also caused inconvenience. The Israeli government has a $ 1.2 billion cloud computing agreement with Google and Amazon, called Project Nimbus.

It was the cause of more tension due to the media Reports The Israeli Defense Forces have used artificial intelligence systems to generate targets for assassinations and attacks in the Gaza Strip, although it is not clear whether the Israeli Defense Army is using commercial purchased programs for these purposes, or building them. The IDF did not respond to a request for suspension.

“We are putting two and two together and we believe that the technology we develop is used in the conflict (in Gaza),” said one of the engineers participating in the Etihad efforts. “This is essentially the advanced artificial intelligence that we offer for a constant conflict. People do not want to use their work like this.”

“People feel deceived,” added the person.

According to the correspondence in FT, five Deepmind employees have resigned during the past two months, noting the cloud computing deal of Israel and the reflection of Google for the current obligations about the use of artificial intelligence. In the United States, Google launched some employees to organize a sit -in protests on the NIMBUS project.

In May 2024, Deepmind A sent letter The company’s leadership is to invite it to drop its military contracts, and some meetings were held with the administration, but their requests were rejected.

The company will now need to be recognized by the company, by voting between DeepMind employees in the United Kingdom. The artificial intelligence unit has about 2000 employees in the United Kingdom.

“Our approach is, the development and spread of artificial intelligence,” said a Google spokesman.

The company said it is still compatible with it Principles of artificial intelligence As for responsible development, the scene has changed dramatically since its 2018 pledge against artificial and monitoring weapons.

The union remains relatively rare in the technology sector, which has resisted long attempts to regulate the workforce. But there has been an increased activity in recent years, including at Amazon and Apple. Google employees The foundations of the Opera Workers Union In the United States in 2021.

One person said that if the federation acquires a recognition of Deepmind, it will seek to fulfill the administration to request that the company change the course of defense deals, and if it does not succeed, thinking about making the strike. They said colleagues in the United States were also in discussions about the Union.

They added: “What I hope and what active people hope is to stay away from any military contracts.”

Google has faced similar protests on its military relations before. In 2018, many employees resigned and thousands of employees signed a petition in protest against Project Maven, a contract for the American army that used artificial intelligence technology to improve drone strikes. After widespread resentment of employees, Google did not renew her contract with the Pentagon and pledged not to work on the techniques of artificial intelligence of weapons or monitoring.

One of the higher numbers of the CWU, who is not a deep employee, said that when the company was established for the first time, “many smart people who wanted to work on things for true good,” said, but Google started “chasing military money.” Google bought the company in 2014.

They pointed out that DeepMind staff are often highly salaries. They said: “They do not join the labor union for wage negotiations. They have joined because they saw the collective benefits of Google’s contract to calculate their declared ethics.”

“Joining the Union may be the most deep of the deep that they would do,” said engineer at DeepMind, who joined the CWU and participates in the organization of disturbing employees.

The employee added that the company “sacrificing ethics for greed.”