Chief legal officer Kent Walker said a lot has changed since Google first introduced its AI principles in 2018, which explicitly stated Google would not build AI for harmful purposes.
After employee protests in 2018, the company withdrew from the US Defense Department’s Project Maven – which used AI to analyze drone footage – and released its AI principles and values, which promised not to build AI for weapons or surveillance.
It was the first time company executives have addressed the whole staff since Google announced it would no longer follow hiring goals for diversity and took down its pledge not to build militarized AI.
Employees had submitted 93 questions about the company’s decision to remove its pledge not to build AI weapons and more than 100 about Google’s announcement that it was rolling back DEI pledges, according to screenshots the Guardian reviewed.
He said it would “good for society” for the company to be part of evolving geopolitical discussions in response to a question about why the company removed prohibitions against building AI for weapons and surveillance.
