Remember the days when a slogan associated with Google was “Don’t be evil.” The slogan was removed from the Code of Conduct in 2018.

Yesterday, in another change, Matt Novak tells us at Gizmodo that Google is dropping a self-imposed ban on using AI for weapons and surveillance.

From Business Insider: “The company said on Tuesday that it had updated its ethical AI guidelines, which lay out how Google will and won’t deploy its technology. The new version removed wording that previously vowed Google would not use AI to build weapons, surveillance tools, or ‘technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm.’” (Hugh Langley, February 5, 2025). We are told that the shift left employees wondering “Are we the baddies?”

Novak offers a more worldly take:

What’s behind this shift? It seems obvious at this point that Trump’s ascendancy to the White House again means that Big Tech can drop the mask. Silicon Valley has long profited from contracts with the U.S. military. It’s a big reason Silicon Valley even exists if you know anything about how it developed in the 1980s thanks to President Ronald Reagan’s defense build-up pumping $5 billion into the region annually. But there was a period from roughly 2015 to 2025 when Big Tech didn’t like the public relations nightmare of looking like they were on the side of people who drop bombs and arrest peaceful protesters. February 5, 2025

If so, it is mostly the public relations that has changed…

At his Substack, AI analyst Gary Marcus offers an interesting take on Google’s sudden ethics switch, discussed during an investor call:

And the biggest news yesterday in Google’s earnings call was not what was said — but was what was not said: how much money they made from AI in Q4. Reading between the lines, Google is locked in a epic arms race for AI supremacy that is not so far paying off. If they were already making zillions from AI, they would have mentioned that on the investor call. But presumably they are not, and that cannot continue indefinitely. Google has to find a way to make back the money back. Bye bye corporate motto, hello military and surveillance. “Google, 2001: Don’t Be Evil,” February 5, 2025

Perhaps the big worry, with firms of that size and power, is whether — whatever any government’s intention — the tail will end up wagging the dog.