> A computing professional has an additional obligation to report any signs of system risks that might result in harm. If leaders do not act to curtail or mitig

> A computing professional has an additional obligation to report any signs of system risks that might result in harm. If leaders do not act to curtail or mitigate such risks, it may be necessary to "blow the whistle" to reduce potential harm. Leadership was actively advancing the project and promoting obscurity / secrecy. Sundar did not act to mitigate risks of harm to free information and dissidents. People were not given enough clarity to make good moral decisions. The entire project reeks of a top-down ethics violation. You can't with a straight face introduce AI ethics guidelines, while you have backdoor meetings with need-to-know engineers building a surveillance and information manipulation system. An objective party within Google should work hard to protect Google's values. To me, an outsider, Sundar can't be trusted anymore on responsible ethical AI (and by extension: AI itself). Probably some misaligned incentives there. > As a leader in AI, we feel a deep responsibility to get this right. So get it right. Start by fixing the wrongs and keeping consistency with your messaging. Or tell me how the planning of a opaquely censored, dragnetted, privacy-intruding, and authoritarian-friendly search platform is consistent with: 1. Be socially beneficial. 2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias. 3. Be built and tested for safety. 4. Be accountable to people. 5. Incorporate privacy design principles. 7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles. We will work to limit potentially harmful or abusive applications. We will not design or deploy AI in the following application areas: Technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm. Where there is a material risk of harm, we will proceed only where we believe that the benefits substantially outweigh the risks, and will incorporate appropriate safety constraints. 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. Technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights. The only thing consistent with the AI ethics guidelines (a plan going forward, already abandoned on release) is the pledge to technical excellence. I am sure, as the leader in Search, that Google is able to build a fine custom solution for the Chinese government.