The Google owner, Alphabet, has dropped its pledge not to use artificial intelligence for purposes such as developing weapons and surveillance tools.
The US technology company said on Tuesday, just before it reported lower than forecast earnings, that it had updated its ethical guidelines around AI, and they no longer refer to not pursuing technologies that could “cause or are likely to cause overall harm”.
Google’s AI head, Demis Hassabis, said the guidelines were being overhauled in a changing world and that AI should protect “national security”.
In a blogpost defending the move, Hassabis and the company’s senior vice-president for technology and society, James Manyika, wrote that as global competition for AI leadership increases, the company believes “democracies should lead in AI development” that is guided by “freedom, equality, and respect for human rights”.
They added: “We believe that companies, governments, and organisations sharing these values should work together to create AI that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security.”
Google’s motto when it first floated was “don’t be evil”, although this was later downgraded in 2009 to a “mantra” and was not included in the code of ethics of Alphabet when the parent company was created in 2015.
The rapid growth of AI has prompted a debate about how the new technology should be governed, and how to guard against its risks.
The British computer scientist Stuart Russell has warned of the dangers of developing autonomous weapon systems, and argued for a system of global control, speaking in a Reith lecture on the BBC.
The Google blogpost argued that since the company first published its AI principles in 2018, the technology had evolved rapidly. “Billions of people are using AI in their everyday lives. AI has become a general-purpose technology, and a platform which countless organisations and individuals use to build applications,” Hassabis and Manyika wrote.
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“It has moved from a niche research topic in the lab to a technology that is becoming as pervasive as mobile phones and the internet itself; one with numerous beneficial uses for society and people around the world, supported by a vibrant AI ecosystem of developers.”
Google’s shares fell 7.5% in after-hours trading, after Tuesday’s report that it made $96.5bn (£77bn) in consolidated revenue, slightly below analyst expectations of $96.67bn.