Human lives are already being lost: Open letter signed by hundreds of Google employees requests CEO reject unethical and dangerous US military AI use

Date:
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:05:00 +0000

Description:
An open letter signed by over 600 employees calls on Google's CEO to not
offer its technology to the Department of Defense.

FULL STORY
Over 600 Google employees have
signed a letter calling on CEO Sundar Pichai to reject any uses of its AI technology for military purposes.

The open letter highlights the serious ethical concerns the staff have, stating, Human lives are already being lost and civil liberties put at risk
at home and abroad from misuses of the technology we are playing a key role
in building. As people working on AI, we know that these systems can centralize power and that they do make mistakes, the letter said. We feel
that our proximity to this technology creates a responsibility to highlight and prevent its most unethical and dangerous uses. In March,
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei rejected allowing the Pentagon to use the Claude model over fears they could be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, leading to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to declare the company a supply chain risk.

Shortly after, OpenAI stepped up to fill the gap left by Anthropic , with CEO Sam Altman facing both internal and external criticism over his seeming willingness to allow military use of ChatGPT.

The new OpenAI contract with the Pentagon was full of holes that would have allowed the same use of ChatGPT that Anthropic feared for Claude. The
contract was amended to state that OpenAIs models would not be used for deliberate tracking, surveillance, or monitoring of U.S. persons or
nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information.

Shortly after, Sam Altman told his employees that the Pentagon has said
OpenAI does not get to make operational decisions on how the military uses AI technologies.

Now, Google employees are joining the growing number of AI company employees and members of the public opposed to the military use of AI tools. Making the wrong call right now would cause irreparable damage to Googles reputation, business and role in the world, the letter states.

Following protests involving Google staff in 2018, the company amended its AI Principles to state that it would not deploy its AI tools where they were likely to cause harm, and would not design or deploy AI tools for
surveillance or weapons. These clauses were quietly removed from its AI Principles on 4 February 2025.

Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/human-lives-are-already-being-lost-open -letter-signed-by-hundreds-of-google-employees-requests-ceo-reject-unethical-a nd-dangerous-us-military-ai-use

$$
--- MultiMail/DOS
* Origin: Capitol City Hub (1:2320/105)