Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, revealed last year that AI had been used “to create mass assassinations” in Gaza.
Google has dropped a commitment not to use artificial intelligence for weapons or surveillance, according to its updated ethics policy on the technology released on Tuesday.
The company had previously pledged not to “design or deploy” AI in technologies that “cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” including “Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people,” as well as technologies that “gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms,” or technologies “whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”
Google removed a pledge to not build AI for weapons or surveillance from its website this week. The change was first spotted by Bloomberg.
The company appears to have updated its public AI principles page, erasing a section titled “applications we will not pursue,” which was… pic.twitter.com/hMbPziFbD9
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) February 4, 2025
The revised version of the policy notes that companies, governments and organizations should work together to ensure that AI “protects people, promotes global growth and “supports national security.”
It noted that “we consider it an imperative to pursue AI responsibly throughout the development and deployment lifecycle — from design to testing to deployment to iteration — learning as AI advances and uses evolve.”
The company pledged to “continue to focus on AI research and applications that align with our mission, our scientific focus, and our areas of expertise, and stay consistent with widely accepted principles of international law and human rights — always evaluating specific work by carefully assessing whether the benefits substantially outweigh potential risks.”
The specific wording related to weapons and surveillance was absent.
Use of AI in Gaza
Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, revealed last year that AI had been used “to create mass assassinations” in Gaza.
“Where before there was a difference between assassination and warfare, now the two are conjoined, where many, perhaps the majority, of targets in Gaza are bombed as a result of artificial intelligence targeting,” Assange said in his first public statement since his release in June after 14 years of incarceration.
‘Artificial Intelligence Used for Mass Assassinations’ in Gaza – Julian Assange
The connection between artificial intelligence and surveillance is important, he added.
“Artificial intelligence needs information to come up with targets, or ideas, or propaganda. When we are talking about the use of artificial intelligence to conduct mass assassinations, surveillance data from telephones, internet, is key to training those algorithms,” Assange explained.
Google, Israel Links
In April last year, Google fired 28 employees for their involvement in a 10-hour sit-in at two of the tech giant’s offices in the US, protesting the company’s ties with Israel.
The protests were led by No Tech for Apartheid, a movement of tech workers demanding Amazon and Google drop Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel.
The Billion Dollar Deal that Made Google and Amazon Partners in the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israel announced in April 2021 that Google and Amazon won the massive state tender, allowing Israel to establish its local cloud storage server centers.
The system can collect all data sources provided by Israel and its military, including databases, resources, and even live observation sources such as street and drone cameras.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
