Workers inside Google’s artificial intelligence division are pushing executives to release them from non-disparagement agreements, arguing they must be free to inform the public about the risks of the technology they are building, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
In London, a major base for Google DeepMind, some staff are forbidden by their employment contracts from criticizing the company for the rest of their lives, even if they leave the firm, according to a contract reviewed by the Post and interviews with two current DeepMind workers. The non-disparagement agreements block them from communicating with the public about the potential impacts of AI, the workers said.
What the Post Found
The Post’s report, by Gerrit De Vynck, says dozens of employees recently joined a discussion about the contract language on an internal messaging platform. Some workers directly criticized the non-disparagement clause, and some posted an emoji of the text “1984,” referring to the dystopian novel, according to one of the current employees. Both workers spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from the company.
The clause is a lifetime restriction: staff bound by it cannot publicly criticize Google’s AI work or warn about its dangers, whether they stay or go. For researchers who spend their days probing the limits of frontier models, that amounts to a permanent muzzle on the people best positioned to judge the risks.
Google’s Response
Google said it will not enforce the clauses after employees leave and has updated the terms for new hires, according to the report. The company did not say whether it would release current staff from the agreements they already signed.
A Wider Pattern of Dissent
The push comes weeks after a wave of resignations over Google’s military AI work. The BBC reported on October 21 that research engineer Sofia Liguori and AI researcher Andreas Kirsch left DeepMind over the company’s AI contracts with the US Pentagon and Israel, saying they could not publicly criticize Google because of the same non-disparagement clauses. Google said at the time that it follows a consistent process for public-sector contracts and complies with its AI Principles.
The Post also notes that a series of top researchers at leading companies including Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have publicly resigned in recent months, citing concerns about the threat AI could pose to society. In September, former DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis joined the chief executives of OpenAI and Anthropic and Elon Musk in calling for a slowdown in AI development to allow more research into keeping the technology under human control.
Why It Matters
As long as there is no effective government oversight of frontier AI, current and former employees are among the few people who can hold the labs accountable to the public. Lifetime non-disparagement clauses cut that channel off at the source. The London push is not just a labor dispute; it is a fight over who gets to warn the world about AI, and whether the people building it are allowed to speak.
