Kamal Ghorui
Google which had reportedly decided to abstain from military work in the year 2018 is now rebuilding its relationship with the Defense Department. According to a report in the New York Times, as Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei clashed with the Department of Defense last month over the use of artificial intelligence in warfare, a top Google executive quietly met with Pentagon officials. As per the report, on February 26, Google Cloud CEO Thomas sat down with Emil Michael, the Pentagon official in charge of selecting AI tools for the Defense Department to pitch the company as defense partner.. Google is said to already have business with the Pentagon, and Kurian offered a reliable, expanded supply of some of the best AI tools on the market. The Defense Department had also reportedly agreed to expand its use of Google’s technology, adding the company’s autonomous systems known as AI agents to its unclassified networks. The deal was publicly announced last week. In a blog post, Google said, “Google has expanded its partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense by launching an AI agent builder on the GenAI.mil portal. The tool enables civilian and military personnel to develop custom AI agents for unclassified tasks such as document drafting and project planning using natural language prompts, without requiring coding skills.”Similarly, according to a report in Business Insider, Google told employees that it was confident its work with the Department of Defense aligned with the company’s AI principles — and that it was “leaning more” into securing national security work with governments. Leaders told employees that Google was pursuing more contracts in areas like cybersecurity and biosecurity.
Everyone at Pentagon not convinced with Google
The report says that despite Google’s reported offer for partnership with the Defense Department, some officials are not very keen on it. There is reportedly reluctance among some Pentagon officials to rely on Google. One of the reasons is because the company dropped a military contract in 2018 in response to protests from employees who argued that AI should not be used in weapons. In June 2018, Google decided not to renew its Defense Department contract for Project Maven, a Pentagon program that seeks to advance AI capabilities that could be used to improve targeting of drone strikes. The announcement came after in April 2018, about 4,000 Google employees signed a letter petitioning CEO Sundar Pichai to end the company’s involvement in Project Maven because “Google should not be in the business of war,” the letter read.In Pentagon vs Anthropic case as well, several top AI researchers at Google, as well as at OpenAI, have signed a legal briefing to support two lawsuits that Anthropic has filed against the Defense Department. More than 100 Google employees urged the company’s leadership to adopt the same red lines as Anthropic. Employees at OpenAI and Google, including a top Google AI executive, Jeff Dean, filed a court brief in support of Anthropic’s lawsuit against the government. “If allowed to proceed, this effort to punish one of the leading U.S. AI companies will undoubtedly have consequences for the United States’ industrial and scientific competitiveness in the field of artificial intelligence and beyond,” the employees said in the filing. “These concerns require a response,” they added. On its part, Anthropic last week challenged the Pentagon for designating it a supply chain risk.The participation of Google employees in the legal briefing added to some officials’ concerns about the company, reminding decision makers in the Pentagon and elsewhere of the past protests against the use of AI in weapons. Some Trump administration officials reportedly are worried that even if Google agrees to have its AI used widely, the company may bow out again under pressure from its employees.
