Google DeepMind Staffers Ask Leaders to Keep Them ‘Physically Safe’ From ICE | EUROtoday

Employees at Google DeepMind have requested the corporate’s management for plans and insurance policies to maintain them “physically safe” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) whereas on the corporate’s premises, in line with screenshots of inner messages obtained by WIRED.

On Monday morning, two days after federal brokers shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti, a Google DeepMind worker despatched the next message in an inner message board for the corporate’s roughly 3,000-person AI unit:

“US focused question: What is GDM doing to keep us physically safe from ICE? The events of the past week have shown that immigration status, citizenship, or even the law is not a deterrent against detention, violence, or even death from federal operatives.”

It continues: “What kinds of plans and policies are in place to ensure our safety at the office? Coming to and from work? As we have seen, government agency tactics can change and escalate quite rapidly. With offices in many metro areas across the US, are we prepared?”

The message acquired greater than 20 “plus emoji” reactions from Google DeepMind staffers.

By Monday night, no senior leaders from Google had responded to the message. In reality, Google’s high brass—together with CEO Sundar Pichai and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis—have remained silent on Pretti’s killing even inside the corporate, sources say.

The messages present among the newest divisions forming between AI corporations and their staff over the Trump administration’s deployment of federal immigration brokers throughout America. While Silicon Valley CEOs have largely bent the knee to Trump, their staff have began elevating issues internally and externally concerning the federal authorities’s actions.

Google DeepMind’s chief scientist, Jeff Dean, has been one of many trade’s most outspoken critics of ICE. In a put up on X Sunday, he responded to a video of Pretti’s taking pictures saying, “This is absolutely shameful.”

Employees on the protection tech agency Palantir have questioned the corporate’s choice to work with ICE. WIRED beforehand reported that one Palantir worker wrote in Slack, “In my opinion ICE are the bad guys. I am not proud that the company I enjoy so much working for is part of this.”

Employees of AI labs that accomplice with Palantir—together with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Meta—have additionally mentioned whether or not to push leaders to chop ties with the protection tech agency, The New York Times reported.

Concerns about ICE brokers coming into Google’s places of work usually are not unfounded. In a message obtained by WIRED, a separate Google DeepMind staffer raised issues a couple of federal agent’s alleged try and enter the corporate’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, workplace within the fall.

Google’s head of safety and threat operations responded to this message to make clear what had occurred. They famous that an “officer arrived at reception without notice” and that the agent was “not granted entry because they did not have a warrant and promptly left.”

Google declined to remark.

Google is one among many Silicon Valley corporations that depends on hundreds of extremely expert overseas employees, a lot of whom are within the United States on visas. In mild of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, these corporations have needed to supply elevated protections for a lot of of their employees. Late final yr, Google and Apple suggested staff on visas to not depart the nation after the White House toughened its vetting of visa candidates.

At that point, Silicon Valley leaders weren’t shy about defending visa applications, which have allowed the United States to herald high expertise from across the globe.

But AI executives have appeared hesitant to talk out concerning the federal authorities’s newest immigration actions. Beyond Google, high executives from Silicon Valley corporations—together with OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Apple, and Amazon—have but to publicly touch upon ICE actions. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the Minnesota incident in an inner message to the corporate, in line with DealBook, telling staff that “what’s happening with ICE is going too far.”