Google Moves Forward With Pentagon AI Deal Despite Employee Pushback - CNET

Oh, wonderful. Google has reportedly signed a deal allowing the US Department of Defense to use its AI models for classified work, despite an open letter from more than 600 employees urging the company to refuse. Because nothing says "responsible AI" like ignoring the people who actually build the technology. The company's leadership, presumably, decided that lucrative defence contracts trump internal ethics committees. We've seen this movie before — the shame we documented last week now has a sequel.

The 600 signatories of that open letter represent a tiny fraction of Google's workforce, but they're the ones with the audacity to think their principles matter. Google's response? They reportedly signed the classified deal anyway, with all the moral deliberation of a slot machine. This isn't Project Maven redux — it's worse. The "classified" nature means no external oversight, no transparency, no way to know if Google's vaunted AI Principles are worth the paper they're printed on. The Pentagon doesn't ask for permission; it asks for access.

What's truly grim is the predictability. Employee pushback gets a sympathetic press cycle, then gets buried under signed contracts. Google's AI ethics board is a museum piece. The 600 employees might as well have written their concerns on a Post-it note in a hurricane. This is the system working exactly as intended: profits nationalised, ethics privatised. Another day, another classified deal. At least the quarterly earnings call will have something positive to crow about.