Google employees call for military limits on AI amid Iran strikes, Anthropic fallout
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Employees at Alphabet and OpenAI are pushing for stricter limits on the military's use of AI, as tensions rise following the blacklisting of Anthropic's models.
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In this article GOOGL AMZN MSFT Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT U.S. Department of War and Anthropic logos are seen in this illustration taken March 1, 2026. Dado Ruvic | Reuters Tech workers at Google , OpenAI, and some of their peers are circulating an array of letters calling for clearer limits on how their employers work with the military after the U.S. carried out strikes on Iran over the weekend and the Pentagon blacklisted AI models from Anthropic. One open letter , titled "We Will Not Be Divided," grew from a couple hundred names on Friday to almost 900 by Monday, with nearly 100 signatories from OpenAI and close to 800 from Google. The letter took aim at the Department of Defense's actions against Anthropic, which refused to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. "They're trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in," the letter reads. "That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand. This letter serves to create shared understanding and solidarity in the face of this pressure from the Department of War." Combat operations began in Iran hours after the Trump Administration's decision on Friday to block Anthropic and designate the company a "supply chain risk." While the U.S. government claimed the attack on Iran was necessary to neutralize "imminent threats" from the country's nuclear and missile programs, the actions appear to have pushed more tech workers to sign their names to various petitions. Tensions in tech have been escalating for months, largely due to the increased aggressiveness of federal immigration agents, including the killings of two American citizens in Minnesota early this year. Workers in the industry have demanded greater transparency regarding the work their employers do with the government, particularly when it comes to cloud and artificial intelligence contracts. For Google, the latest backlash comes as the company is reportedly in t...
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