WORKERS at Google\u2019s artificial intelligence lab have voted to unionise in response to the tech giant\u2019s partnership with the US military.<\/p>\n
Employees of Google\u2019s 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<\/a>, which would see around 1000 workers gain union recognition. <\/p>\n One worker told the paper: \u201cI have joined the union due to concerns about AI being used to empower authoritarianism, whether through military or surveillance applications, both foreign and domestic.<\/p>\n \u201cBy unionising, we are taking the traditional route for workers to organise and have a say.\u201d<\/p>\n READ MORE: New long-distance bus service launches from Scottish city to popular seaside town<\/a><\/p>\n Workers have also expressed concerns about Google\u2019s dealings with the Israeli military during the genocide in Gaza<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2021, it signed, alongside Amazon, a $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, The Guardian reports.<\/p>\n Footage appears to show the car of Mohammed Wishah following an Israeli drone strike (Image: Al Jazeera\/Youtube)<\/p>\n Another worker told the paper: \u201cOur technology helped the IDF. I want AI to benefit humanity, not to facilitate a genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, a spokesperson for Google said: \u201cGoogle 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\u2019ll remain focused on creating a positive and successful workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n A second spokesperson added that the company was \u201cnot aware of any vote to officially unionise\u201d.<\/p>\n READ MORE: John Curtice gives verdict on chances of SNP majority on eve of Scottish election<\/a><\/p>\n It is thought that the UK DeepMind workers are the first \u201cfrontier\u201d AI lab workers to unionise amid growing tensions at Google after the company dropped a pledge not to develop militarised AI technology.<\/p>\n The US department of war said at the start of the month that agreements signed with a raft of American tech giants<\/a> \u2013 including Google, Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s SpaceX, OpenAI, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services \u2013 would \u201caccelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters\u2019 ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare\u201d.<\/p>\n More than 600 Google workers last week signed an open letter to the firm\u2019s CEO Sundar Pichai which said: \u201cWe 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\u2019s reputation, business<\/a>, and role in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WORKERS at Google\u2019s artificial intelligence lab have voted to unionise in response to the tech giant\u2019s partnership with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24,4760,18588,5044,132,1429,19991],"class_list":{"0":"post-30846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-google","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence-lab","10":"tag-communication-workers-union","11":"tag-deepmind","12":"tag-google","13":"tag-google-ai","14":"tag-union-recognition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30846","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=30846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}