Other former staff members were reassigned to Alphabet’s drug-discovery company Isomorphic Labs, which is a DeepMind spin-off.

They’re still actively working on this area of research.

Tax exemptions for activity that would not have taken place without those tax exemptions cost the state nothing - no money is being “thrown” and no tax income that would otherwise have been received is being forgone. Meanwhile, giving “poor guys” $200,000 a year costs $200,000 per year per poor guy. That’s the difference.

Well no, they couldn’t have, because this is money they can’t get in any case. Data centers that aren’t built don’t pay taxes.

This is what international law has to say about incendiary weapons:

1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.

2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

3. It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.

4. It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.

This treeline is clearly not located within a concentration of civilians and it is concealing (or plausibly believed to be concealing) enemy combatants and therefore the use of incendiary weapons is unambiguously legal.