Google Quietly Drops Promise Not To Use AI For Weapons

2025-02-11 12:02:39

(MENAFN- Asia Times) Last week, google quietly abandoned a long-standing commitment to not use artificial intelligence (AI) technology in weapons or surveillance. In an update to its AI principles, which were first published in 2018 , the tech giant removed statements promising not to pursue:

technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm
weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people
technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms
technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.

The update came after United States President Donald Trump revoked former President Joe Biden's executive order aimed at promoting safe, secure and trustworthy development and use of AI.

The Google decision follows a recent trend of big tech entering the national security arena and accommodating more military applications of AI. So why is this happening now? And what will be the impact of more military use of AI?

Militarized AI

In September, senior officials from the Biden government met with bosses of leading AI companies, such as OpenAI, to discuss AI development. The government then announced a task force to coordinate the development of data centers, while weighing economic, national security and environmental goals.

The following month, the Biden government published a memo that in part dealt with“harnessing AI to fulfil national security objectives”.

Big tech companies quickly heeded the message.

In November 2024, tech giant Meta announced it would make its“Llama” AI models available to government agencies and private companies involved in defense and national security.

This was despite Meta's own policy which prohibits the use of Llama for“[m]ilitary, warfare, nuclear industries or applications.”

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