Google Signs AI Deal With Pentagon for Classified Work as Employees Object

In brief

• Google has reportedly signed a deal to provide AI models to the Pentagon for classified work
• The Pentagon has signed similar agreements with OpenAI and xAI.
• Google employees are urging CEO Sundar Pichai to reject classified AI workloads.

Google has signed a deal to provide the Pentagon with its artificial intelligence models for classified work, according to a report from The Information.

The agreement allows the U.S. Department of Defense to use Google’s AI for “any lawful governmental purpose,” people familiar with the deal told The New York Times. The language mirrors the contracts the Pentagon signed last month with OpenAI and xAI to use their AI models on classified networks.

“We are proud to be part of a broad consortium of leading A.I. labs and technology and cloud companies providing A.I. services and infrastructure in support of national security,” a Google spokesperson told The New York Times. “We remain committed to the private and public sector consensus that A.I. should not be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weaponry without appropriate human oversight.”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt.

While the details have not been disclosed, ahead of the deal, it comes as hundreds of Google employees signed an open letter to CEO Sundar Pichai urging the company not to make its AI systems available to the Pentagon.

“We want to see AI benefit humanity; not see it being used in inhumane or extremely harmful ways,” the letter said. Currently, the only way to guarantee that Google does not become associated with such harm is to reject any classified workloads. Otherwise, such uses may occur without our knowledge or the power to stop them.”

The letter argues that AI systems “make mistakes” and can “centralize power,” and argues Google has a responsibility to prevent “its most unethical and dangerous uses,” including “lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.”

The employees warn that making the “wrong call right now would cause irreparable damage to Google’s reputation, business, and role in the world.”