Google Workers Seek 'Red Lines' on Military A.I., Echoing Anthropic

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/technology/google-deepmind-letter-pentagon.html

141•mikece•1h ago

Comments

beanjuiceII•1h ago

100 google employees wow

verdverm•1h ago

every change starts with a few people, and then it grows

bigyabai•1h ago

Google is grandfathered into a few preexisting defense contracts. Any red lines you draw may have already been crossed.

pempem•1h ago

Literally yesterday google changed how secrets work. Its very possible to introduce change.

busko•17m ago

Do you have any references for this? I'd like to know more.

cheonn638•1h ago

> every change starts with a few people, and then it grows

your opinion is defense contracts are bad

my opinion is defense contracts are good

who is correct? probably me since 99.9% of Googlers won’t leave over this

piloto_ciego•1h ago

something something if all your friends we're jumping off of a bridge would you do it too?

klhutchins•50m ago

There's lots of money for everyone on the way down

omoikane•47m ago

> if all your friends were jumping off of a bridge would you do it too?

Probably.

https://xkcd.com/1170/

Although in the context of the parent comment, majority of Googlers probably aren't working on things directly related to controversial topics, instead they are probably working on mundane and non-external facing projects like "how do I migrate my libraries from this deprecated dependency to this other shiny new thing".

dotancohen•52m ago

Why is there any controversy about defending one's nation being "good" or "bad"?

I can not believe what I am reading here, and how the single comment supporting defending one's country is so heavily downvoted. Qatar has poisoned Western online communities such that all defence of the United States is considered taboo? I don't even live in the US and I am frightened by what I see here.

nailer•46m ago

Oh I believe it’s important to defend the country, but not because it’s a popular opinion. I dislike any statement that believes truth is based on consensus.

lordofgibbons•35m ago

The controversy isn't about defending one's country, it's about you and the parent comment author assuming what this is all about without reading the article.

The core of the issue about autonomous use of AI in mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous use of AI in automated weapons that make kill decisions. Anthropic is perfectly fine with working with the War Department and "defending one's nation".

But they are not okay with their AI being used to make a mockery of the 4th amendment and making automated kill/no-kill decisions about actual human lives.

seattle_spring•10m ago

"Defending one's nation" and "capitulating to the people in charge like Hegseth" are very much not the same thing.

dietr1ch•1h ago

And they'll be terminated by Jan 2027. Anything too scandalous will be done in secrecy thanks to code&project silos.

ChrisArchitect•1h ago

The letter: https://notdivided.org/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47174964)

rvz•1h ago

We already forgotten about this already? [0] Where was the open letter then?

Both companies (Google, OpenAI [0]) have defense contracts. At this point, the best course of action is to leave Google and OpenAI if you disagree with that (they won't).

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/17/openai-mi...

jimmydoe•53m ago

I say stay, and do a subtlety bad job there.

dotancohen•50m ago

Sabotage? You are openly advocating the internal sabotage of US defense capability?

busko•10m ago

Piggybacking on deeply integrated information and connectivity within society that was marketed and adopted under the guise of trust and an ethos of not being evil is pathetic.

Build, train, develop and maintain an AI for military if needed. When a government is scared of individuals they've clearly lost their edge.

g947o•41m ago

Your manager and colleagues are not idiots.

sudonem•1h ago

As much as I applaud the intention, the genie has been out of the bottle on this one for many years already.

markus_zhang•1h ago

Arguably it has always been there, considering the US military sponsored so many computing projects.

taurath•2m ago

There's always this comment, saying that its useless to possibly govern or resist the temptation to fall to harm.

If the world actually worked like they did, if restraint were just not possible, the world would have been destroyed at least 3 documented times over.

Don't listen to them.

sidibe•1h ago

I remember they successfully got Google out of a military contract in the first admin (and briefly vilified by the right for that). that's not going to work now. Workers have a lot less power and the CEO is buddies with Trump

SpicyLemonZest•57m ago

As the article says, the workers didn't petition the CEO, they petitioned the head of Google AI who's already expressed solidarity with Anthropic. If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say; it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.

SecretDreams•48m ago

My one concern in this whole thing is that if these slightly less benevolent, but still have some morality, companies don't engage, we'll be left with companies like OAI and xAI engaging and you just know that's not going to make things better for anyone.

SpicyLemonZest•40m ago

It’s not a great situation, no doubt, but after Kristi Noel’s luxury jet I’m willing to hope that their capacity for grift outweighs their competence.

dataflow•20m ago

> it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.

Wouldn't it be more like he would leave on his own and the company would keep moving along? Why would they fire him?

moogly•1h ago

If we're going to have to rely on self-regulation for this, we're already doomed.

Analemma_•28m ago

Sure, but we’re currently so fucked that even self-regulation is clearly superior to kneeling to the Mad King and his drunkard Secretary of War.

mikestorrent•27m ago

There is only self regulation, ultimately, at the top. I think it's still progress to see these groups specifically call out their moral hesitations, even if it doesn't go anywhere - it gives people ground to realize that others share their concerns. All movements, all progress starts from people putting their stance out there and getting a conversation going around the topic; that builds mindshare and eventually a demand for change.

dbcooper•1h ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/magazine/ukraine-ai-drone...

miohtama•1h ago

"Don't do evil"

Oh, wait...

dotancohen•41m ago

Defending one's own country is not evil, no matter how much money Qatar pours into Western social media influencers.

tehjoker•37m ago

It is when "defense" means invasion and subjugation of other countries. All countries pose their military operations as "defense." Inquiring minds should ask if a country surrounded on sides by two oceans with two pacified neighbors has any real threats or merely opportunities for cheap labor, market access, and mineral rights abroad.

This has been going on for a very long time (read what Smedley Butler said in "War is a Racket"), but after the Iraq War, the credibility of the US should be somewhere in hell.

stevenpetryk•16m ago

It's not black and white. There is an entire spectrum of completely justifiable and extremely questionable uses of military power by the US.

ecshafer•36m ago

Aiding the your nation is not evil, in fact its the opposite, its Good.

seattle_spring•8m ago

Aiding Hegseth / The Heritage Foundation is not aiding the US. If anything, it's the exact opposite.

raw_anon_1111•53m ago

Google employees must think this is pre 2024. The employer has the power and doesn’t mind laying off people who don’t tow the company line and all of the CEOs bend over and bribe the President - ie “settling” frivolous lawsuits brought by Trump himself over “censorship” when he was out of office

SpicyLemonZest•51m ago

I think a lot of software companies are going to learn just how much employee power remains tomorrow, in the very likely event that the Pentagon issues an order purporting to ban all defense contractors from using Claude.

Xeronate•48m ago

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.

Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world (specifically in this case keeping up in an arms race).

CasualSuperman•40m ago

With current leadership, I think we're closer to Germany in this analogy.

ihsw•35m ago

This kind of inflammatory nonsense serves no purpose other than to be insulting and provocative.

j16sdiz•34m ago

This is not answering the question.. and HN ain't US only.

You can say the same for any other country... What if Japan employee refuse, but American want that anyway? What if China employee refuse, but Russia employee want that anyway?

The implication are still the same -- social, culture, jurisdiction, national interest, company interest don't share the same boundary and don't align on their priorities.

tokioyoyo•31m ago

I don’t think they’re refusing all military involvement. Autonomous-decision making is the problematic part.

b65e8bee43c2ed0•32m ago

my brother in Christ, what do you think the 40's America was like?

SpicyLemonZest•24m ago

Is there any reason to think that autonomous weapons are a critical strategic capability? It's hard to see what an unpiloted drone can do that a remotely piloted drone can't, other than perhaps human rights violations.

andsoitis•9m ago

Faster decisions, less fatigue, etc.

skybrian•24m ago

Not to worry, xAI would do it even if Google didn't.

Also, Anthropic didn't actually refuse to work on all military stuff. They have some conditions, which isn't the same thing.

dheera•19m ago

> American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.

It's not American employees vs. China employees. No need to villainize China at every opportunity. Most Chinese employees are more similar to American employees than you think.

It's {top candidates who have their pick of employers} have the luxury to refuse to build this.

Mid-tier dude who can't land a job at any of the top AI companies and can code with Cursor and trying to pay their rent or medical bills will absolutely build AI for the military in return for having their rent paid.

This is regardless of whether it is in the US or China.

tehjoker•39m ago

Good! Organize Google Workers <3 You are in a unique position to do a huge amount of good in the world.

ecshafer•37m ago

This gets a giant eye roll from me. Are you really so naive that you thought working on AI for a giant tech company, creating software that is capable of finding deep patterns in massive amounts of data... and it wasn't going to used by the Defense / Intelligence industry? If you are so against the US government, and you are working for ANY big tech company you are aiding the Intelligence and Defense industry. Government uses AWS and Azure. Intelligence agencies use the data and tools of Meta / Google / Apple / etc.

blobbers•36m ago

Am I the only one who remembers the prime directive of google, much easier to understand than 'organizing the worlds information' etc. etc. It was simpler.

Don't be evil.

OrvalWintermute•23m ago

Google has been evil for at least a decade, if not longer than that.

This is just pigslop masquerading as a moral stand.

What happened to the OG Google that cared about users, prioritized honest search, fast performance, and didn't murder pages with ads?

browningstreet•17m ago

Given Jeff Dean’s political activity on X, I’m guessing he’s aligned to the resistance too. Not sure the rest of management is interested in caving.

peyton•14m ago

The resistance goes out the window the first time an American is gunned down by an autonomous system. They should do whatever possible to prevent that outcome.

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