Google DeepMind Workers Vote To Unionize Over Military AI Deals
- Reference: 0183133624
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/05/05/1817252/google-deepmind-workers-vote-to-unionize-over-military-ai-deals
- Source link:
> Employees at Google DeepMind in London have voted to unionize as part of a bid to [1]block the AI lab from providing its technology to the US and Israeli militaries . In [2]a letter addressed to Google's managing director for the UK and Ireland, Debbie Weinstein, the workers asked the company to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives for DeepMind employees. "Fundamentally, the push for unionization is about holding Google to its own ethical standards on AI, how they monetize it, what the products do, and who they work with," John Chadfield, national officer for technology at the CWU, tells WIRED. "Through the process of unionization, workers are collectively in a much stronger place to put [demands] to an increasingly deaf management."
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> [...] The DeepMind employee tells WIRED that if the staff succeeds in unionizing in the UK, they will likely demand that Google pulls out of its long-standing contract with the Israeli military, and seek greater transparency over how its AI products will be used, and some sort of assurance relating to layoffs made possible by automation. If Google does not engage, the letter states, the employees will ask an arbitration committee to compel the company to recognize the unions. Since the turn of the year, both Anthropic and OpenAI have announced large-scale expansions of their operations in London. CWU hopes the unionization effort at DeepMind will spur workers at those labs into similar action. "These conversations are happening," claims Chadfield. "The workers at other frontier labs have seen what Google DeepMind workers have done. They've come to us asking for help as well."
The unionization push began [3]in February 2025 after Alphabet removed a pledge from its AI ethics guidelines that had barred uses such as weapons development and surveillance. "A lot of people here bought into the Google DeepMind tagline 'to build AI responsibly to benefit humanity,'" the DeepMind employee told WIRED. "The direction of travel is to further militarization of the AI models we're building here."
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/google-deepmind-workers-vote-to-unionize-over-military-ai-deals/
[2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VMj5MYHkfbc6vt-yGdI-9s215G0r-zSf/view
[3] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/04/2217224/google-removes-pledge-to-not-use-ai-for-weapons-from-website
The much departed CCCP (Score:1)
These deluded commies didn't get the memo that the CCCP is no more.
Unions are for employee protections. (Score:2)
Or is that no more? This sounds like unionizing to control the employer's actions or morality. I don't see how this is even a thing going anywhere.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not going anywhere. Unions can bargain all they want over this issue, and they may even have a valid societal value in doing so. But unless they can show that it will cost Google more in legal fees than it will in lost revenue or lack of willing employees, the only real option the employees will have is to quit in protest.
Re: (Score:2)
Quitting is probably the best option anyway, given Googles already-fucking-evil trajectory. Go work somewhere that's demonstrated some ethics. However, I'd guess that AI use in the military will grow irrespective of any rage-quitting or talent realignment. The demand is simply too great.
If they could fully put optics and feeds on Iran and detect every small boat launch then smash it with a cheap 3d-printed drone, they'd definitely be doing that. The biggest obstacle is not having enough eyes to watch all
Re: (Score:2)
> Or is that no more? This sounds like unionizing to control the employer's actions or morality. I don't see how this is even a thing going anywhere.
These employees are being forced to choose between having their work product support a genocide, and being unemployed. It strikes me that they should be protected from such a choice - especially so since the company they work for once had a loudly-proclaimed motto which said "Don't be evil".
Re: Ingrates can go work at a flower shop (Score:2)
It was not the peasants that allowed a bunch of third world rape culture in, it was the fucking government that did it, the same government that is supposed to protect the people became the enemy within,
Meaning while in China, they keep advancing. (Score:1)
These folks make me laugh. Go ahead, handcuff Google and other AI companies from working with Western governments. China loves you for it. You can bet your ass they aren't concerned with that noise. They will continue to develop AI and use it with their military and eventually become the dominate super power (assuming they haven't already achieved that). The West will continue it's slide from power while this happens.
It's even funnier because, even the Western government's can straight up just take your shi
Go Google Employees! (Score:3)
Go Google employees: best of luck to you!
It won't work: Google is a for profit company, and there are A LOT of profits to be made in the made from the military. They will stop operating in the UK before they give up that much money.
It's almost like there's some sort of complex set up between the military and industrial sides of the equation, designed to drain US taxpayer money from citizens and into the that military industrial complex ...
But still, keep fighting the good fight!
Re: (Score:1)
Hrm.
While it would not have a snowballs chance in hell of working, I would be curious to see someone try some kind of unjust enrichment claim. Contracted work was preformed for compensation, but also preformed under the company's written policies, and one could argue that if they would not have performed the work under the new policies, and the company continues to benefit from the work performed, that the benefits were fraudulently gained. Would not work, but it would be interesting to see the legal ar
Re: Go Google Employees! (Score:2)
I could understand if they were just pacifists, but where were these guys when Google backed Russia's information warfare campaign in a US court?
[1]https://youtube.com/watch?v=4I... [youtube.com]
More like anti-US military than anti-war. Fuck them.
[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=4IaOeVgZ-wc