Unity, the popular game making tool, has long been used in industries outside of video games. Unity's site celebrates this versatility, saying its technology offers "incredible possibilities" for film, engineering, architecture, automotive, transportation, and more.
Unity's site also proudly lists its technology being used by the government and military, but internal Unity documents obtained by Waypoint show the company is struggling to explain why its employees, who supposedly signed up to create tools that empower game makers, are now directly or inadvertently developing technologies for militaries with the stated objectives of fighting wars.
According to three sources Waypoint talked to, some Unity employees might develop technology that ends up with military clients without even realizing that's how their work would be used. These sources, a mixture of current and former Unity employees, were granted anonymity to avoid reprisal.
According to these sources, the part of Unity that's pursuing government and military contracts is sometimes nicknamed "GovTech," which the company described in a public presentation from March 2021 as intended to "develop technologies across our products that helps the government adapt AI and ML [machine learning]"
One internal memo, titled "GovTech Projects - Communication Protocol," which was shared with Waypoint but not distributed widely within Unity itself, outlined how the company should talk about these contracts with "internal/external stakeholders," and makes clear Unity understands the delicate line it's walking.
"We need to be sensitive to the various values & beliefs which people perceive our engagement with the Government, specifically DoD [Department of Defense]," reads the memo, which instructs managers to use the terms "government" or "defense" instead of "military."
The memo is listed as a draft, isn't dated, and Waypoint's sources were unaware of a final version meant for wider distribution. It includes a list of "Do's" and "Don'ts" for Unity employees when talking about GovTech projects. Under "Do's," the memo tells employees to point out that Unity is using AI to improve how the DoD runs simulations and trainings, and that "Nothing we are doing will be used in live warfighting." The memo also instructs employees to highlight that Unity's "current projects provide a service and or solution to DoD companies and we are not taking the lead on any single project."
Under "Don'ts," the memo instructs employees not to "discuss any projects that involves the use of simulated or virtual weapons or training to harm another person."
A postscript on the memo also implies that Unity's work with the military is justified by the DoD's own ethical principles. "PS: It's important to note that DoD itself has published a set of AI principles that it has pledged to adhere to as it adopts AI at scale," the memo says, and links to a 2020 press release by the DoD that outlined its own "series of ethical principles" related to the research and use of military artificial intelligence. The memo highlights the following quote from the DoD press release: "The principles address these new challenges and ensure the responsible use of AI by the department." ... Most Unity employees do not have immediate access to every detail about a project the company is working on. Employees can request that information from a manager in some cases, but it's rarely easy. Part of the problem, sources told us, was that not all Unity employees knew exactly what Unity was doing for the military, and if the projects that they were working on could end up supporting Unity's work for the military without them realizing.
"Most Unity AI work empowers other government projects, so in this way it can be difficult to gauge one's contribution to government projects," said one source.
According to one source, a Unity engineer could be working on an AI tool without a specific application in mind and have no way of knowing if another part of the company would then use that tool for a contract with the military.
"It didn't seem very clear through company training or anything like that there even were concerns, really, in what we were doing," the source said.
"It should be very clear when people are stepping into the military initiative part of Unity," said one source.
According to a document Unity employees used to collect answers from managers to ethical questions, and that was shared with Waypoint, an unnamed employee noted they'd been tasked with working on what had been pitched as "a placement randomization scheme for a government simulation project." In reality, according to that unnamed employee, it was "simulating explosion debris on virtual runways" for the United States military. The same employee noted how Unity frequently used "government" to describe military projects, a practice outlined in the memo Waypoint obtained.
"I dont think most employees were warned that they would need philosophy degrees before accepting a position at Unity," reads a different comment from another employee. "Many of my fellow employees are very talented engineers or artists, but I dont think that experience necessarily prepares us to be successful in passively identifying the complex repercussions of advancing certain emerging technologies."
In response to an inquiry about this story, Unity told Waypoint that one of the company's goals is to "have applications outside of gaming." The company did not respond to a list of specific questions, which included inquiries about whether Unity employees had ever knowingly or unknowingly participated in the creation of a weapon of war and how much the company makes off its military contracts, and instead passed along a long statement included in full at the end of this article.
I dunno what to think about this really. I've actually quit a military-adjacent programming job in the past in large part because I was uncomfortable with the stuff I was working on and the general atmosphere of the place. so I can definitely understandd uncomfortable feelings. but it's also sort of unavoidable since advanced tech in basically any area tends to get immediately vacuumed up by the military
I wonder if there are any existing software licenses that explicitly prohibit military use
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I dunno what to think about this really. I've actually quit a military-adjacent programming job in the past in large part because I was uncomfortable with the stuff I was working on and the general atmosphere of the place. so I can definitely understandd uncomfortable feelings. but it's also sort of unavoidable since advanced tech in basically any area tends to get immediately vacuumed up by the military
I wonder if there are any existing software licenses that explicitly prohibit military use
IIRC Google at least used to have an explicit no military policy. I don't know if that's still in force.
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"History Is Much Like An Endless Waltz. The Three Beats Of War, Peace And Revolution Continue On Forever." - Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz