Google’s involvement in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Project Maven in 2017 and 2018 is what led to the original AI principles document. Thousands of its employees protested the military project, and in response, Google did not renew the agreement and promised to stop pursuing AI weapons.

Google has made one of the most substantive changes to its AI principles since first publishing them in 2018. In a change spotted by The Washington Post, the search giant edited the document to remove pledges it had made promising it would not "design or deploy" AI tools for use in weapons or surveillance technology.

Google has changed its mind on building military AI. The change appears in the tech giant’sResponsible AI Progress Report for 2024, releasedTuesday, with updated AI Principles t