Google has made a dangerous U-turn on military AI

Google's "Don't Be Evil" era is well and truly dead. Having replaced that motto in 2018 with the softer "Do the right thing," the leadership at parent company Alphabet Inc has now rolled back one of the firm's most important ethical stances, on the use of its artificial intelligence by the military.

- PARMY OLSON

This week, the company deleted its pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance, a promise that had been in place since 2018. Its "Responsible AI" principles no longer include the promise, and the company's AI chief, Demis Hassabis, published a blog post explaining the change, framing it as inevitable progress rather than any sort of compromise.

"[AI] is becoming as pervasive as mobile phones," Mr Hassabis wrote. It has "evolved rapidly." Yet the notion that ethical principles must also "evolve" with the market is wrong. Yes, we're living in an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape, as Mr Hassabis describes it, but abandoning a code of ethics for war could yield consequences that spin out of control.

Bring AI to the battlefield and you could get automated systems responding to one another at machine speed, with no time for diplomacy. Warfare could become more lethal, as conflicts escalate before humans have time to intervene.

Automated decision making is the real problem here. Unlike previous technology that made militaries more efficient or powerful, AI systems can fundamentally change who (or what) makes the decision to take human life.