On Thursday, Google has announced that they will not permit its artificial intelligence software to be used for weapons and unreasonable surveillance efforts as part of its abidance over its own standards regarding the artificial technology industry and related products.
The restrictions may assist Google defuse months of protests by several of its employees after the company worked with the US military to identify objects in drone video.
According to his post about the issue on Thursday, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai said Google will pursue other government contracts including around cybersecurity, military recruitment and search and rescue.
"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."
Google, and its contemporaries, have been working on AI technology for years and they have already achieved breakthroughs on improving the performance and cost of advanced computers and utilize AI for defense and health sectors. They have also become the major sellers of AI tools, which enable computers to review large datasets to make predictions and identify patterns and anomalies faster than humans could.
Although AI systems have the potential to assist in pinpointing drone strikes better than military specalists or identify dissidents through mass collection of online communications, its capacity has caused concerns amongst employees and academic ethicists.
Google has remarked that they will not pursue AI application sintended to cause physical injury, that tie into surveillance "violating internationally accepted norms of human rights" or that present greater "material risk of harm" than countervailing benefits.
The company's principles also call for employees as well as customers "to avoid unjust impacts on people", specially on race, sexual orientation, and political or religious belief.
Pichai had also remarked that Google reserved the right to block applications that violated its principles.
