Sundar Pichai published "AI at Google: our principles," setting out seven principles for the company's AI work along with four areas it would not pursue. Those excluded "weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people," technologies that "gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms," and technologies "whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights." The document was Google's answer to the internal protest over Project Maven, and Pichai was explicit that the company would continue working with governments and militaries in other areas such as cybersecurity, training, and search and rescue. As one of the first instances of a major AI company publicly declaring what it would refuse to build, it became a template for comparable policies elsewhere.
7June 2018
GovernanceConfirmed
Google publishes AI Principles, ruling out weapons
Participants
Tags
- ai-principles
- governance
- national-security
Sources
Later developments
4 February 2025 · Development
In February 2025 Google revised the principles, removing the section listing applications it would not pursue — including the explicit bans on weapons and surveillance. The reversal drew criticism.