Google DeepMind workers have voted to unionise, demanding an end to the use of their AI technology by Israel and the US military in Gaza.

BREAKING: Google DeepMind workers in UK have voted 98% in favour of unionising — demanding an end to AI use by Israel and the US military for perpetrating genocide in Gaza. If successful, they’ll be the first frontier AI lab in the world to unionise.

Google AI workers in pioneering union bid over Israel, US military tech use Scores of Google AI workers have launched an unprecedented unionisation bid to end use of their technology by Israel and the US military. The UK-based Google DeepMind employees – who aim to become the first frontier artificial intelligence lab worldwide to unionise – sent a letter on Tuesday requesting management recognise the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union as their official representatives.

📰 Google DeepMind workers are unionizing over AI military contracts Staffers at Google DeepMind's headquarters have voted to unionize in an effort to prevent the AI firm's technology from being used by Israel and the US military. In a letter to Google management on... 📰 Source: The Verge 🔗 Link: https://www.theverge.com/tech/923918/google-deepmind-union-bid-ai-military-israel #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

📰 Google DeepMind Workers Vote To Unionize Over Military AI Deals An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Employees at Google DeepMind in London have voted to unionize as part of a bid to block the AI lab from providing its technology to the US and Israel... 📰 Source: Slashdot 🔗 Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/05/05/1817252/google-deepmind-workers-vote-to-unionize-over-military-ai-deals?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

Workers at the UK branch of Google’s AI lab, DeepMind, have voted to unionise – partly in a bid to resist deals with the US and Israeli militaries. The workers wrote to management on Tuesday to request the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union be recognised as their representatives, after voting to unionise in April. Google finalised a new deal to supply DeepMind technologies to the Pentagon last week. “I have joined the union due to concerns about AI being used to empower authoritarianism, whether through military or surveillance applications, both foreign and domestic,” one worker told the Guardian. “Our technology helped the IDF,” another worker said, referring to Google’s sale of DeepMind services to Israel’s military. “I want AI to benefit humanity, not to facilitate a genocide.” The company’s work with Israel’s military, which has slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza while committing numerous other atrocity crimes, has sparked the No Tech for Apartheid campaign. The campaign aims to put an end to Project Nimbus, a $1.2bn agreement that Google and Amazon made with Israel to supply its military and government with cloud computing services. As part of the agreement, Israel reportedly demanded that both companies sidestep their legal obligations in other countries by secretly warning the apartheid state when they were made to share Israeli data with any courts. The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that it had reached deals with DeepMind and several other AI companies, including SpaceX, OpenAI, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. “These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the US department of war said in a statement.