Hawzah News Agency- Figures with knowledge of the organising spoke to the Financial Times and said approximately 300 employees inside Google DeepMind, the company's artificial intelligence London office, want to join the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Worker attempt to unionise comes after Google's decision to drop AI principles on weapons and surveillance.
Three people involved with the unionisation efforts told the FT that media reports over Israel's use of artificial intelligence to wage its war on Gaza and its ongoing partnership with Google have spurred employees in DeepMind to consider unionising.
The Israeli regime has a $1.2bn cloud computing agreement with Google and Amazon called Project Nimbus.
Correspondence seen by the FT also shows that five people have quit DeepMind in the last two months because of the company’s involvement with Israel and its reversal of commitments regarding the use of AI for defence.
Google will need to recognise the union, with its AI division employing approximately 2,000 people.
According to one worker, if Google recognised the union, the workers would request a meeting with management to cut their defence deals. If this fails, the workers would consider strike action.
Last May, nearly 200 DeepMind workers signed an open letter calling on Google to drop its contracts with military organisations.
Source: MIDDLE EAST EYE
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