Google DeepMind staff push back against a lifetime non-disparagement clause in their contracts

Citing a Washington Post report from November 3, Seoul Economic Daily reports that employment contracts for Google DeepMind staff in London include a non-disparagement agreement that applies for life, including after employees leave. According to the report, which cites multiple people at the company, staff argue the clause could stop them from raising public concerns about the potential dangers of AI, and they want it removed. Dozens of employees have recently raised the issue on DeepMind's internal messaging platform. Some criticized the clause directly. Others compared the situation to George Orwell's novel "1984," and some called it a scare tactic that encourages self-censorship. The dispute flared after a former Google DeepMind employee, Sophia Liguori, spoke to the BBC. The report does not include a response from Google. Non-disparagement terms at frontier AI labs have drawn scrutiny before, because researchers and safety advocates see former employees as an important source of public information about how powerful AI systems are developed. The outcome of the internal pushback could affect how freely current and former DeepMind researchers can speak about the lab's work.