WORKERS at Google’s artificial intelligence lab have voted to unionise in response to the tech giant’s partnership with the US military.

Employees of Google’s DeepMind research arm sent a letter to management requested that the Communication Workers Union and Unite be recognised as joint representatives of UK-based staff, The Guardian reports, which would see around 1000 workers gain union recognition.

One worker told the paper: “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.

“By unionising, we are taking the traditional route for workers to organise and have a say.”

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Workers have also expressed concerns about Google’s dealings with the Israeli military during the genocide in Gaza, with the Washington Post reporting last year that the tech firm granted Tel Aviv increased access to its AI tools from the early days of the bombardment of Palestine.

In 2021, it signed, alongside Amazon, a $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, The Guardian reports.

Footage appears to show the car of Mohammed Wishah following an Israeli drone strike (Image: Al Jazeera/Youtube)

Another worker told the paper: “Our technology helped the IDF. I want AI to benefit humanity, not to facilitate a genocide.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Google said: “Google UK recently received a letter from Unite and the Communications Workers Union requesting recognition for Google DeepMind UK employees. We have always valued constructive dialogue with employees and we’ll remain focused on creating a positive and successful workplace.”

A second spokesperson added that the company was “not aware of any vote to officially unionise”.

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It is thought that the UK DeepMind workers are the first “frontier” AI lab workers to unionise amid growing tensions at Google after the company dropped a pledge not to develop militarised AI technology.

The US department of war said at the start of the month that agreements signed with a raft of American tech giants – including Google, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, OpenAI, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services – would “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”.

More than 600 Google workers last week signed an open letter to the firm’s CEO Sundar Pichai which said: “We want to see AI benefit humanity; not to see it being used in inhumane or extremely harmful ways. Making the wrong call right now would cause irreparable damage to Google’s reputation, business, and role in the world.”