Google staff protest against company’s AI work with the Pentagon

Over 3,100 staff have signed an open letter

Thousands of staff at Google are protesting against the company’s work with the Pentagon’s surveillance drones programme.

Now more than 3,100 staff have signed an open letter — addressed to chief executive Sundar Pichai— as they feel this could “irreparably damage” brand Google.

The letter refers to Google’s TensorFlow technology, an open-source machine learning system which is being used by the Pentagon on a pilot project, according to reports.

“We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” states a copy of the letter published by The New York Times, adding: “Therefore we ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicise and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.”