Staffers at Google DeepMind\u2019s headquarters have voted to unionize in an effort to prevent the AI firm\u2019s technology from being used by Israel and the US military. In a letter to Google management on Tuesday, employees requested that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union be recognized as joint representatives, with 98 percent of CWU members at DeepMind voting in support of the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want our AI models complicit in violations of international law, but they already are aiding Israel\u2019s genocide of Palestinians,\u201d an unnamed DeepMind employee said in a statement shared by the CWU. \u201cEven if our work is only used for administrative purposes, as leadership has repeatedly told us, it is still helping make genocide cheaper, faster, and more efficient. That must end immediately, as must harm to Iranians and human lives anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
If successful, the unionization bid would secure representation for at least 1,000 staff based out of Google DeepMind\u2019s London headquarters. Management now has 10 working days to voluntarily recognize the unionization efforts before legal processes are formally launched to force recognition.<\/p>\n
The union bid includes specific demands<\/a> that staffers want Google to address, which include making a clear commitment to not pursue the development of weapons, technologies or contracts that harm or surveillance people; negotiations around the use of AI that \u201cmaterially affect our roles, workloads, or job security;\u201d and the right for workers to abstain from projects that violate their \u201cpersonal moral or ethical standards.\u201d DeepMind staff globally are also reportedly considering in-person protests and \u201cresearch strikes,\u201d where they abstain from working on improvements to Google AI services like Gemini AI assistant, as part of a wider campaign against Google\u2019s military-industrial AI contracts.<\/p>\n We have reached out to Google for comment.<\/p>\n This comes a week after hundreds of Google employees signed an open letter<\/a> to CEO Sundar Pichai demanding the company refuse signing classified AI contracts with the Pentagon. Shortly after, Google \u2014 alongside OpenAI and Nvidia \u2014 signed deals<\/a> that reportedly allow the US Department of Defense to use their AI models for \u201cany lawful government purpose.\u201d In 2024, the company fired more than 50 staffers<\/a> in response to a protest over Google\u2019s military ties to the Israeli government.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a really important moment where tech workers at Google\u2019s frontier AI lab are connecting with some of the most oppressed people in communities around the world in meaningful ways, based on foundational values of solidarity and trade unionism,\u201d said John Chadfield, CWU national officer for tech workers. \u201cBy exercising their rights to collectivize they are in a strong position to demand their employer stop circling the ethical drain of military-industrial contracts, echoing the sentiment of many working people in the UK and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staffers at Google DeepMind\u2019s headquarters have voted to unionize in an effort to prevent the AI firm\u2019s technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24,132,1429,820,66,781],"class_list":{"0":"post-27745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-google","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-google","10":"tag-google-ai","11":"tag-labor","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}