Google UK in Internal Turmoil as Anti-Israel DeepMind Staff Unionise – Guido Fawkes

Google UK in Internal Turmoil as Anti-Israel DeepMind Staff Unionise

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Bad times over at big tech giant Google, whose staff at AI division DeepMind are in the process of unionising with the antediluvian dinosaurs at the Communication Workers Union. Nothing to do with employment rights, rather due to DeepMind’s contracts with Israel…

Top engineers at DeepMind – many of whom earn some of the biggest salaries in UK tech – are collectivising over the ‘ethics’ at Google, according to a CWU figure, with one engineer accusing his employer of ‘sacrificing morals for greed’. According to reports over the weekend, those involved with the “unionisation drive” also cited a $1.2 billion cloud computing agreement between Google and Amazon and the Israeli Government as an issue for the 300 employees now apparently seeking to join the CWU. Five employees have reportedly already quit their roles, with the contract and the changed AI pledge cited as the reason…

Last May, around 200 Google DeepMind workers wrote to company bosses calling on them to drop contracts with military organisations, citing reports about Google’s contract with Israel’s Ministry of Defence. Should Google DeepMind recognise the unionisation attempts, the staff will try to derail defence deals – or strike. Over in the US, when Google staff staged a similar sit-in over contracts with Israel last year, Google fired them. Did the job…