On Friday 14 Nov, UCL staff, students and alumni gathered at UCL’s Donor Wall where UCL celebrates @googledeepmind as a £1m+ donor.
GDM develops and supplies technology for Google’s £1.2b AI and cloud computing deal with the Israeli military and government, Project Nimbus. This technology has facilitated the killing of Palestinians at an unprecedented rate.
UCL’s stated ambition is to “change the world for the better… for the long term benefit of humanity”. Yet it continues to honour GDM, and maintain deep and ongoing ties with a company actively complicit in a genocide touted as “the first AI war”.
A speaker from United Tech & Allied Workers @utaw_uk asked to imagine an institution which steered its tech resources and talent towards the social good. Instead, UCL funnels students into careers with companies expanding mass surveillance and facilitating occupation, apartheid and genocide.
We demand that UCL:
– Rescind the honorary fellowship award to Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind
– Divest from parent company Alphabet
– Terminate participation with GDM in teaching, research and public engagement
Sign the petition, read the full complicity report, join the BDS movement at UCL.
Slide image credit @mohammed_ibrahim_mi https://unsplash.com/@mohammed_ibrahim_mi. Other image credits @pavel_rh