Google DeepMind Engineer Quits Over Pentagon, Nimbus Deals

Sofia Liguori, a research engineer at Google DeepMind who worked on AI systems for electrical-grid routing, has resigned over her employer's military contracts with the United States and Israel. In an interview with The Intercept, she said she had actually stopped working months earlier: when Google announced its classified military AI contract with the Pentagon in April, she staged a personal sick-out, combining sick leave and holiday time to cease her work.

"I no longer believe that our technology will have a net positive impact on society," Liguori told the publication.

She traces the decision to two specific moves by her employer. "By this winter we saw the GenAI.mil contract materializing," she said; "The December GenAI.mil launch had given me a deep sense of urgency." Around the same time, Google raised the security authorisation on its Cloud to IL6, the level required to handle classified workloads. "AI for targeting is very dangerous; it creates a system where it's easier to escalate the brutality of war," she said. "The kind of tech-powered, AI-powered, brutal war that was tested in Gaza was getting approved to become the standard of war."

A Google spokesperson, Tom Hewett, told the outlet the company works "with public sector organisations worldwide and follow[s] a consistent process for reviewing and entering these contracts, including compliance with our acceptable use policies," and that dedicated employee channels exist for raising concerns under a strict anti-retaliation policy.

The resignation lands in a staff environment that had already shifted. DeepMind employees voted to unionise in May; Liguori co-organised a demonstration in front of the office in February and found her way to the Google worker group No Tech for Apartheid after a colleague who had taken her role during maternity leave left for ethical reasons. "The company was very effective at creating a pervasive sense of fear, which induces self-censorship," she said.