It rings a little hollow when they fired members of/disbanded their nominally independent internal ML Ethics unit after a member published a paper raising some flags on the kind of models Google is betting its future on.
It’s also just a huge step back from ‘ethical’. Responsible implies one can hide behind ‘technical limitations’ or ‘business concerns’. It means you took the unethical option but you at least weighed the pros and cons first
The appearance is that it’s about AI being responsible for advancing corporate image and interests.