Google staff resign in backlash over its AI contracts with military

Similar contracts were signed by OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX, Oracle, Nvidia, and the start-up Reflection, to allow AI technology to be deployed across a range of military settings such as transport, planning and battlefield operations.

As the tech quickly evolves, concerns are growing about the use of AI in theatres of war.

“AI compresses the time an operator has to make a decision because it works much faster than a person, and that’s especially risky in a high-stress environment,” said Sarah Shoker, formerly head of OpenAI’s Geopolitics team.

“When you have hundreds of targets that are selected by AI and a short amount of time, it is almost impossible for a human operator to meaningfully review the AI’s outputs for errors.”

Employees at Google have told the BBC that staff are scared to speak out about AI safety and its uses in warfare because their employment contracts prohibit them from publicly criticising the company.

“In principle I’m not allowed to criticise Google for the duration of my life,” Sofia Liguori told the BBC. But she decided to do so “because I believe it’s important for these things to be known and I also think that talking about facts is not criticising”.

Liguori added that at Google “people are scared of retaliation and putting their career at risk. You feel you are being watched, you can’t speak.”

A current employee at Google DeepMind, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, told the BBC that “a lot of motivated employees who signed up for [the company’s] original mission could leave – but there’s also a pipeline of people at the start of the careers who could fill those positions. It could be a changing of the guard.”

Another Google DeepMind staff member, who also wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC: “A lot of people have left the company that feel strongly about this [how Google DeepMind has changed its ethics position].”

“Some people are putting up a fight, others are thinking: ‘it’s a big company. What do you expect to change?'”, the employee said.

Google’s agreements with Israel have also caused controversy. In 2024, the company was criticised by staff for a joint contract with Amazon worth $1.2bn (£960m) called Project Nimbus which provides Israel’s government and military with AI technology and cloud computing infrastructure. At the time, Google said Project Nimbus “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services”.

Moreover, Israel’s AI capabilities in warfare have been the focus of debate after they were featured in a recent documentary, Naza, which examines the role of AI-powered targeting systems to bombard the Gaza Strip, resulting in high civilian casualties. An Israeli government minister has said the claims presented in the film were false and distorted.

Former Google employee Andreas Kirsch believes AI technology in warfare is not ready for the battlefield. “Current AI models are not robust enough, and I don’t think they have been trained for such tasks either,” he said.

Additional reporting by Rosa Rahimi