谷歌的AI领导层变动，可能源于加速产品落地的压力——以及内部伦理冲突。
插图：Cath Virginia / The Verge
谷歌AI大重组背后混乱的政治角力
谷歌的AI领导层变动，可能源于加速产品落地的压力——以及内部伦理冲突。
在AI行业，谷歌一直以“房间里最成熟的大人”自居：沉稳、稳健、经得起时间考验。周三，即便公司宣布了迄今最大规模的AI组织架构调整，谷歌及其领导层仍展现出团结一致的姿态，对外口径始终聚焦于这些变动如何为未来成功铺路。
但现实是，这一长串高管变动很可能预示着谷歌AI组织内部更深层的问题。首先是其在AI竞赛中岌岌可危的地位，其次还牵涉到诸如Google DeepMind负责人Demis Hassabis更看重长期研究而非短期产品交付的倾向，以及来自DeepMind首席科学家Jeff Dean等顶级员工日益高涨的政治反对声。
一位因担心遭到报复而要求匿名的谷歌现任员工表示，其中一项变动——Dean的离开——是“谷歌理想主义残余”彻底消亡的一个例证。“失去Jeff意味着谷歌人才流失的延续，”该员工说，“平庸很可能是最终结果。”
周三的消息震动了整个AI行业——在一个AI研究人员像抢椅子游戏一样频繁跳槽换岗的时代，这实属不易。谷歌宣布，Demis Hassabis将卸任DeepMind的日常运营职责，专注于AGI与研究；DeepMind现任首席技术官Koray Kavukcuoglu将接替Hassabis领导DeepMind。与此同时，在谷歌任职27年、身为公司第30号员工的Jeff Dean，将与三位谷歌顶级AI研究员一同离开，创办一家新的AI初创公司。
“失去Jeff意味着谷歌人才流失的延续。平庸很可能是最终结果。”
谷歌被普遍视为现有科技巨头中在 AI 竞赛里最成功的一家，进展远超 Meta、亚马逊和苹果。但谷歌仍被认为比 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 行动更慢，而且在前沿模型上显然也还没有甩开它们。哈萨比斯和谷歌 CEO 桑达尔·皮查伊都在各自的声明中指出了这一点。
皮查伊写道：“我们致力于站在前沿，并高度聚焦于需要改进的领域。”他还补充说：“我们必须继续快速行动，并带着清晰的目标前进。”哈萨比斯则写道，公司正进入一个“新篇章”，而且“我们具备从这里继续领跑的所有要素，我坚信我们能做到。”
AI 行业的关键人物似乎普遍认为，这些变动意味着哈萨比斯退居一旁，转而支持 GDM 内部更快速、更以产品为导向的推进。
一位最近离职、了解谷歌 AI 业务的前谷歌员工告诉 The Verge：“谷歌内部的竞争比我过去十年看到的要激烈得多，主要集中在 AI 产品领域。”他还补充说，公司一直面临压力，需要招聘更多能加快产品上线速度的员工，以应对日益激烈的竞争。
“谷歌内部的竞争比我过去十年看到的要激烈得多，主要集中在 AI 产品领域。”
另一位因仍在与 AI 实验室合作而要求匿名的 AI 行业消息人士表示：“我同意大家的解读，这是德米斯影响力减弱的信号。”
哈萨比斯一直毫不掩饰地表示，他的兴趣在于 AI 可能带来的科学进步，或许比对这项技术的商业化更感兴趣。皮查伊在一篇博文中写道，哈萨比斯接下来的动向将聚焦于“积极塑造 AGI 的未来”，担任 DeepMind 董事长和 Alphabet 首席科学家，同时继续领导药物发现衍生公司 Isomorphic Labs。
但 AI 领导层只是谷歌面临的问题之一——The Verge 采访的业内人士反复回到一个核心问题：这在多大程度上与谷歌内部日益加剧的伦理冲突有关？
非营利性AI行业监督机构The Midas Project的创始人泰勒·约翰斯顿告诉The Verge，哈萨比斯的职务变动和迪恩的离职，可能都与谷歌与美国国防部的合作协议有关。该协议可能允许谷歌AI被用于大规模监控和致命自主武器系统。
约翰斯顿说：“这已经导致了DeepMind的人员离职和工会组建行动。有许多迹象表明，迪恩和哈萨比斯可能个人对此持反对态度。事实上，谷歌最初收购DeepMind时，曾承诺不将该技术用于军事或情报目的。”
深受AI研究者关注的博主兹维·莫肖维茨也认为，迪恩决定离开可能“与谷歌在DoW合同上的决策有关”。
“谷歌最初收购DeepMind时，曾承诺不将该技术用于军事或情报目的。”
迪恩离职后将创办AI初创公司Discovery Loop，目标是在药物发现、硬件设计、清洁能源和材料设计等领域实现数千项科学与工程实验的自动化。与他共同担任联合创始人的还有另外三位谷歌顶尖AI研究员：桑杰·格马瓦特、黎确和奥里奥尔·维尼亚尔斯。
这位现任谷歌员工表示：“失去杰夫，感觉像是谷歌内部道德和基本人性的一次重创。他是这里为数不多的、仍然愿意在道德问题上公开发声的有影响力人物之一，比如ICE特工处决美国公民、AI监控以及自主致命武器等问题。”
迪恩是美国国防部将 Anthropic 列为供应链风险一事中最高调的反对者之一，此前 Anthropic 在军方使用其 AI 一事上坚守自身红线。3 月，迪恩是数十位提交法庭之友意见书、支持 Anthropic 诉讼的科技行业领袖和员工之一，意见书阐述了他们对特朗普政府这一决定的担忧，以及对 AI 风险和影响的关切。（他还在 1 月对特朗普政府提出批评，称 ICE 杀害 Alex Pretti 一事“极其可耻”，并称“每个人都应不论政治立场如何，对此予以谴责。”）
4 月，在 Anthropic 与美国国防部就其红线——禁止国内大规模监控和致命自主武器（无人类参与决策）——展开旷日持久的斗争之后，Google 成为乐于填补 Anthropic 被五角大楼列入黑名单所留下空白的公司之一。与其他几家公司一样，Google 签约允许五角大楼将其 AI 用于“任何合法用途”。
Jeff Dean 过去曾公开否定与 Anthropic 相同的这两条红线。
Dean 过去曾公开否定与 Anthropic 相同的这两条红线。2 月，他在 X 上写道：“大规模监控违反第四修正案，并对言论自由产生寒蝉效应。监控系统容易被滥用于政治或歧视性目的。”而在 2018 年，Dean 和 Hassabis 都签署了一份公开承诺，否定致命自主武器：“我们这些签署人一致认为，剥夺他人生命的决定绝不应被委托给机器。”
Alex Turner 是 Google 一名因公司五角大楼交易而辞职的研究员，他上月在专栏文章中写道，Dean 的“离职对公司而言将是一场灾难”，并称“通过签署（法庭之友意见书），他打破了公司的统一立场，这很可能让高管层内部变得尴尬。”
在这份迪恩今年早些时候签署的法庭之友意见书中，该团体写道：“我们构建、训练并研究大规模AI系统，这些系统服务于广泛的用户和部署场景，包括国家安全、执法和军事行动等重大领域。”该团体自称是“直接了解这些系统能与不能做什么、以及当它们的部署速度超过旨在约束它们的法律和伦理框架时风险何在的专业人士。”
迪恩的离开可能会让一位高调的批评者消失，但肯定不会消除整个组织内部的批评声音。自今年年初以来，越来越多的谷歌员工对组织的政治倾向表示不满。
“谢尔盖（布林）在政治上来了个180度大转弯，桑达尔在特朗普就职典礼上站在他身后，”这位现任谷歌员工说。“现在，公司里仅剩的几位愿意在道德问题上发声的人物之一也离开了。谁知道我们接下来还会出卖什么？”
Google’s AI leadership changes may have come down to pressure to speed up products — and internal ethical conflicts.
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
The messy politics behind Google’s big AI shakeup
Google’s AI leadership changes may have come down to pressure to speed up products — and internal ethical conflicts.
In the AI industry, Google prides itself on seeming like the adult in the room: quiet, stable, time-tested. On Wednesday, even as the company announced its largest AI org shakeup yet, Google and its leaders presented a unified front, keeping their messaging focused on how the changes tee up future success.
But the reality is that the laundry list of executive changes likely signal deeper issues within Google’s AI organization. That starts with its tenuous position in the AI race, and it stretches to problems like Google DeepMind leader Demis Hassabis’ interest in longer-term research over shorter-term product shipping, as well as bubbling political opposition from top employees like DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean.
A current Google employee, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said one of the changes — Dean’s departure — is an example of “the vestiges of Google’s idealism” fully dying out. “Losing Jeff continues the brain drain at Google,” they said. “Mediocrity is the likely result.”
Wednesday’s news rocked the AI industry, which is difficult to do during an era when AI researchers are constantly switching between roles and labs like a game of musical chairs. Google announced that Demis Hassabis is stepping away from DeepMind’s day-to-day operations to focus on AGI and research; Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind’s current CTO, will step up to lead DeepMind in Hassabis’ place. At the same time, Jeff Dean, a 27-year Google veteran and the company’s 30th employee, will leave the organization alongside three top Google AI researchers to form a new AI startup.
“Losing Jeff continues the brain drain at Google. Mediocrity is the likely result.”
Google is widely viewed as being the most successful of the established tech giants in the AI race, far surpassing progress by Meta, Amazon, and Apple. But Google is still viewed as slower-moving than OpenAI and Anthropic, and it certainly hasn’t lapped them in frontier models. Both Hassabis and Google CEO Sundar Pichai made that point in their statements.
“We are committed to being at the frontier, and are super focused on the areas where we need to improve,” Pichai wrote, adding, “We have to continue to move fast and with clear purpose here.” Hassabis wrote that the company is entering a “next chapter” and that it has “all the ingredients to lead from here, and I firmly believe we will.”
Key figures in the AI industry seemed to view the changes as Hassabis stepping to the side in favor of a faster-moving, product-focused push at GDM.
“There’s been far more internal competition at Google than I’ve seen in the last decade primarily around the AI product space,” one former Google employee, who recently left the company and had knowledge of Google’s AI operations, told The Verge. They added that there’s been pressure to hire more employees who can speed up launches of more products, in keeping with the intensifying competition.
“There’s been far more internal competition at Google than I’ve seen in the last decade primarily around the AI product space.”
Another source within the AI industry, who requested anonymity due to ongoing work with AI labs, said, “I agree with everyone’s read that this is a sign of Demis’ loss of influence.”
Hassabis hasn’t been quiet in sharing that his interests lie in the scientific advancements that could come from AI, perhaps more so than the commercialization of the technology. Pichai wrote in a blog post that Hassabis’ next move will focus on “actively shaping the future of AGI” as DeepMind chair and Alphabet’s chief scientist, while continuing his role leading the drug-discovery spinoff Isomorphic Labs.
But AI leadership is only one of the problems facing Google — and industry insiders The Verge spoke with kept coming back to one main question: How much of this had to do with increasing ethical conflicts within Google itself?
A contributing factor to both Hassabis’s role change and Dean’s departure may have been Google’s deal with the Department of Defense, Tyler Johnston, founder of the nonprofit AI industry watchdog The Midas Project, told The Verge. That deal could potentially allow for the use of Google AI in mass surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons.
“This has already caused staff departures and a unionization effort at DeepMind,” Johnston said. “There are many signs suggesting Dean and Hassabis may have personally felt opposed. In fact, DeepMind was initially acquired by Google with an agreement not to sell the technology for military or intelligence purposes.”
Zvi Mowshowitz, a blogger followed closely by AI researchers, echoed that Dean’s decision to leave could potentially be “related to Google’s decisions on the DoW contract.”
“DeepMind was initially acquired by Google with an agreement not to sell the technology for military or intelligence purposes.”
Dean is leaving to launch Discovery Loop, an AI startup that aims to automate thousands of science and engineering experiments in areas like drug discovery, hardware design, clean energy, and material design. Joining him as cofounders are three additional top Google AI researchers: Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le, and Oriol Vinyals.
“Losing Jeff feels like a blow for morality and basic human decency within Google,” the current Google employee said. “He was one of the few remaining visible, powerful figures here who was willing to speak out on moral issues such as ICE agents executing American citizens, AI surveillance, and autonomous lethal weapons.”
Dean was one of the most high-profile dissenters to the Department of Defense’s labeling of Anthropic as a supply chain risk after the company stood firm on its red lines for military use of its AI. In March, Dean was one of dozens of tech industry leaders and employees to file an amicus brief in support of Anthropic’s lawsuit, laying out concerns over the Trump administration’s decision — as well as about AI’s risks and implications. (He also pushed back on the Trump administration in January, saying that ICE’s killing of Alex Pretti was “absolutely shameful” and that “every person regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this.”)
In April, after Anthropic’s drawn-out fight with the DoD over its red lines — prohibiting domestic mass surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons (with no human in the loop) — Google became one of the companies to happily fill the gap left by Anthropic’s Pentagon blacklisting. Like a handful of other companies, Google signed on to allow the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful use.”
Jeff Dean had publicly disavowed both the same red lines as Anthropic in the past.
Dean had publicly disavowed both the same red lines in the past. In February, he wrote on X, “Mass surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment and has a chilling effect on freedom of expression. Surveillance systems are prone to misuse for political or discriminatory purposes.” And in 2018, both Dean and Hassabis signed a public pledge disavowing lethal autonomous weapons: “We the undersigned agree that the decision to take a human life should never be delegated to a machine.”
Alex Turner, a Google researcher who quit over the company’s Pentagon deal, wrote in an op-ed last month that Dean’s “departure would be a disaster for the company” and that “by signing [the amicus brief], he broke from the company line, which probably made things awkward within the C-suite.”
In the amicus brief that Dean signed earlier this year, the group wrote, “We build, train, and study the large-scale AI systems that serve a wide range of users and deployments, including in the consequential domains of national security, law enforcement, and military operations.” The group described itself as “professionals with direct knowledge of what these systems can and cannot do, and what is at stake when their deployment outpaces the legal and ethical frameworks designed to govern them.”
Dean’s departure may remove a high-profile critic, but it certainly won’t dispel criticism within the organization as a whole. Since the beginning of the year, an increasing number of Google employees have expressed discontent with the organization’s politics.
“Sergey [Brin] did a 180 politically, Sundar stood behind Trump at his inauguration,” the current Google employee said. “Now one of the only remaining figures at the company willing to speak out on moral issues is gone. Who knows what we will sell out next?”