“ Is this as terrifying as it sounds ?” asked one journalist and author as the mention of those applications disappeared from the company ’ s AI Principles page , where it had been included as recently as last week .
Margaret Mitchell , who previously co-led Google ’ s ethical AI team , told Bloomberg that the removal of the principles “ is erasing the work that so many people in the ethical AI space and the activist space as well had done at Google , and more problematically it means Google will probably now work on deploying technology directly that can kill people .”
The company s updated AI Principles page says it will implement “ appropriate human oversight ” to align its work with “ widely accepted principles of international law and human rights ” and that it will use testing and monitoring “ to mitigate unintended or harmful outcomes and avoid unfair bias .”
But with Google aligning itself with the Trump administration , human rights advocate Sarah Leah Whitson of Democracy for the Arab World Now called the company a “ corporate war machine ” following Tuesday ’ s announcement .
Google donated $ 1 million to his inaugural committee along with other tech giants and sent CEO Sundar Pichai to Trump ’ s inauguration , where he sat next to the president ’ s top ally in the industry , Elon Musk .
Since Trump won the election in November , tech companies have also distanced themselves from previous pledges to strive for diversity , equity , and inclusion in their hiring and workplace practices , as Trump has directly targeted DEI programs in the federal government .
“ It ’ s deeply concerning to see Google drop its commitment to the ethical use of AI technology without input from its employees or the broader public ,” Parul Koul , a Google software engineer and president of the Alphabet Union Workers- CWA , told Wired on Tuesday .
At Google , said Koul , there is still “ longstanding employee sentiment that the company should not be in the business of war .”
40 The Trial Lawyer