Amid Anthropic–Pentagon clash, Google employees urges company to steer clear of military ties

The tremors from Anthropic’s standoff with the Pentagon are spreading fast across Silicon Valley, and now, Google employees are warning their company not to follow the same risky path.

More than 100 Google employees working on artificial intelligence have signed a letter to Jeff Dean, chief scientist of the company’s AI division, DeepMind, demanding that Google distance itself from potential military entanglements.

“Please do everything in your power to stop any deal which crosses these basic red lines,” the letter reads. “We love working at Google and want to be proud of our work,” reports NYT.

Anthropic’s resistance sparks a movement

Anthropic, the fast-growing AI start-up behind the Claude model, has been under intense pressure from the US Department of Defense to loosen restrictions on how the military can use its technology. The Pentagon, which signed a $200 million contract with the company, reportedly wants the freedom to apply Anthropic’s AI systems in surveillance and autonomous defence operations.

But the company has stood firm. In a recent statement, Anthropic said it “will not alter core safeguards to accommodate use cases that could endanger human rights or violate international norms.” That refusal has made Anthropic a lightning rod, admired by some in the tech world for holding ethical ground, criticised by others in Washington for obstructing innovation.

Now, Google’s workforce wants their employer to take a similar stand. Employees warned that allowing the Pentagon to access Gemini AI, Google’s flagship AI system, could lead to surveillance of US citizens or even the piloting of autonomous weapons without human oversight.

The unrest highlights growing unease among tech workers who see the government’s embrace of AI as a moral minefield. Many fear that once a company concedes to military demands, its technology risks being repurposed for uses never intended by its creators.

Google staff rally around Jeff Dean’s stance

Jeff Dean has publicly sided with those concerns. “Mass surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment and has a chilling effect on freedom of expression,” he wrote in a recent post. “Surveillance systems are prone to misuse for political or discriminatory purposes.”

His comments have emboldened employees across Google and OpenAI, nearly 200 of whom issued a joint statement condemning the Pentagon’s “divide and conquer” tactics and calling for AI companies to stand together in resisting such demands.

Google, however, has remained silent. The company is said to be close to finalising a new defence agreement, reviving memories of its 2018 Project Maven controversy, when employee backlash forced it to abandon a Pentagon contract.

Despite recent rollbacks in its AI safety protocols, Google’s internal culture of activism endures. And as Anthropic holds its ground against government pressure, Google’s staff are drawing a clear line of their own: if the Pentagon wants to weaponise AI, it won’t be with their help.