Google won't deploy AI to build military weapons: Sundar Pichai
San Francisco, June 8 : After facing backlash over its involvement in an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered Pentagon project "Maven", Google CEO Sundar Pichai has enphasised that the company will not work on technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm.
About 4,000 Google employees had signed a petition demanding "a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology".
Following the anger, Google decided not to renew the "Maven" AI project with the US Defence Department after it expires in 2019.
"We will not design or deploy AI in weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people," Pichai said in a blog post late Thursday.
"We will not pursue AI in "technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms," the Indian-born CEO added.
"We want to be clear that while we are not developing AI for use in weapons, we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas like cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, veterans' healthcare, and search and rescue," Pichai noted.
Google will incorporate its privacy principles in the development and use of its AI technologies, providing appropriate transparency and control over the use of data, Pichai enphasised.
In a blog post describing seven "AI principles", he said these are not theoretical concepts but "concrete standards that will actively govern our research and product development and will impact our business decisions".
"How AI is developed and used will have a significant impact on society for many years to come. As a leader in AI, we feel a deep responsibility to get this right," Pichai posted.
Google will strive to make high-quality and accurate information readily available using AI, while continuing to respect cultural, social, and legal norms in the countries where it operates.
"We will seek to avoid unjust impacts on people, particularly those related to sensitive characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, income, sexual orientation, ability, and political or religious belief," Pichai noted.
Pichai said Google will design AI systems to be appropriately cautious, and seek to develop them in accordance with best practices in AI safety research.
"We will design AI systems that provide appropriate opportunities for feedback, relevant explanations, and appeal. Our AI technologies will be subject to appropriate human direction and control," he added.
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UN: India calls on international community to act together against ISIS, Al Qaeda
United Nations (PTI): India has called on the international community to act together against ISIS and Al Qaeda and their proxies, underlining that terrorism is an “existential threat” to international peace and security.
“Terrorism is an existential threat to international peace and security. It knows no borders, nationality, or race, and is a challenge that the international community must combat collectively,” First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Raghoo Puri said on Wednesday.
In remarks to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) annual ambassadorial level briefing to Member States, Puri recalled the April 2025 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, carried out by The Resistance Front, a proxy of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN listed terror organisation. The terror attack led to the loss of lives of 26 tourists.
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“We must act together against ISIS and Al Qaeda and their proxies,” he said, adding that as a country which itself has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for the past nearly three decades, “India is acutely aware of the socio-economic and human cost of terrorism, especially for its victims.”
India added its voice in stressing on the importance of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) as a central instrument for multilateral cooperation.
Puri said India will remain steadfast and engaged in the consultations for the 9th review of the GCTS, assuring full cooperation to co-facilitators Finland and Morocco during negotiations in the process.
Puri also highlighted that as Chair of the Counter Terrorism Committee in 2022, India has striven to bring these principles into the counter-terrorism architecture of the UN and into the debate on terrorism at the United Nations.
“Our follow up initiatives both in New York and around the world stand testimony to our commitment,” including the ‘Delhi Declaration’ - a landmark document to deal with the issue of countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes, an issue Puri said is of acute importance for several Member States.
In October 2022, the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), chaired by India that year, had organised a special meeting in New Delhi and Mumbai on the overarching theme of ‘Countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes’.
As an outcome of the special meeting, the committee had adopted the ‘Delhi Declaration’ on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.
India continues to work closely with the UN via its various entities to build capacity and make its partners future ready to take on the ever-evolving scourge of terrorism, he said.
