That's presumably the trick, and it's not a subtle one; it's why the article puts it on quotes in the headline. Google gets to claim that it stood up for principles because it boldly insisted that the government obey the law, and the government will claim that whatever it decides to do is lawful. It's the same as what OpenAI did except not handled buffoonishly.

Lawful is presumably defined in the usual, common sense, ie we can do whatever the f we want until a court physically forces us not to.

No it doesn't at all. Private corporations shouldn't be telling the government what it can and can't do. That's the job of the people. You want private corporation overriding your vote?

Especially concerning with the how creative the executive branch can be when it comes to what laws mean. With little oversight, it seems guaranteed that it will be used for unlawful activities (despite whatever tortured argument some lawyer will have put into a memo somewhere).

"who watches watchmen"

question as old as time itself

Google should never be determining what is lawful or not.

There's big air quotes energy in their statement

The classified aspect is probably the most concerning. How can I write my representative (and expect a form letter response six weeks later) if I don't know what I'm objecting to or even if I should be objecting?

By definition "the law" is the set of laws that the government passes. So it's a roundabout way of saying the government can pretty much do what they want.

Also, this is probably the only acceptable arrangement when it comes to industry-government contracts. The government will always have more information than civilians.

One thing is sure, they don't have international law in mind...

This has to be one of the strangest "debates" in history.

Congress and the courts obviously.

If you think there's a hole in the law tell your congressman, don't, for some reason, try and put Google or any Ai company above the government.

It kind of reminds me of a mix of Skynet in Terminator and Minority Report. But nowhere near as interesting. More annoying than anything else.

I am kind of mad at James Cameron here. Skynet was evil but interesting. Reallife controlled by Google is evil but not interesting - it is flat out annoying.