Hundreds of AI researchers at tech giant Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google are worried about the dangers of AI systems for military defense. On Monday, more than 500 of these employees signed an open letter to CEO Sundar Pichai, urging him to refuse the use of such technology by the company in U.S. defense missions.
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Shares in Google remain over 2% higher in Monday’s afternoon trading despite the news. The letter raised concerns about the dangers of AI and its vulnerability to mistakes.
Workers Flag ‘Extremely Harmful’ AI Uses in Warfare
It also flags “extremely harmful” uses in cases such as lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. The move comes less than two weeks after media reports indicated that Google was in talks with the U.S. Department of Defense to adopt its Gemini AI models in a classified setting.
It also follows the recent row between Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense over the use of the startup’s AI systems in defense workloads — a disagreement that landed in court over the Pentagon’s designation of the startup as a national security supply chain risk.
‘War Dept Will Continue to be AI-First’
Meanwhile, the U.S. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering on Monday announced the addition of Google’s latest Gemini AI models for government to the Department of Defense’s generative AI platform, GenAI.mil. The office noted that more than three million uniformed and civilian personnel can now access the models on its platforms.
“Warfighters are actively transforming the U.S. Department of War’s operations to be faster and more efficient, condensing critical project timelines from months to mere weeks,” the office wrote on X. “The War Department will continue to be AI-FIRST!”
Is Google a Strong Buy?
On Wall Street, Alphabet’s shares remain a Strong Buy based on analysts’ consensus rating. This breaks down to 26 Buys and five Holds assigned by 31 analysts over the past three months.
In addition, the average GOOGL price target of $387.68 implies roughly 10% upside from current trading levels.
