The Washington Post says it has seen documents according to which Google employees actively assisted Israel in gaining access to certain advanced AI technology quickly after the war in Gaza began.
The report says Israel’s Defense Ministry sought to expand its use of Vertex AI, a Google service applying AI algorithms to data. One worker warned internally that a delay in granting access to the tech could push Israel to switch to competitor Amazon. The paper notes that while the documents confirm Google’s cooperation with Israeli defense officials, they do not detail how precisely the AI technology was intended for use.
Here is that report, along with additional articles on the topic:
Google rushed to sell AI tools to Israel’s military after Hamas attack
Google employees have worked to provide Israel’s military with access to the company’s latest artificial intelligence technology from the early weeks of the Israel-Gaza war, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The internal documents show Google directly assisting Israel’s Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces, despite the company’s efforts to publicly distance itself from the country’s national security apparatus after employee protests against a cloud computing contract with Israel’s government.
Google fired more than 50 employees last year after they protested the contract, known as Nimbus, over fears it could see Google technology aid military and intelligence programs that have harmed Palestinians.
In the weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants, a Google employee in its cloud division escalated requests for increased access to the company’s AI technology from Israel’s Defense Ministry, the documents obtained by The Post show.
The documents, which detail projects inside Google‘s cloud division, indicate that the Israeli ministry urgently wanted to expand its use of a Google service called Vertex, which clients can use to apply AI algorithms to their own data.
A Google employee warned in one document that if the company didn’t quickly provide more access, the military would turn instead to Google‘s cloud rival Amazon, which also works with Israel’s government under the Nimbus contract.
Another document, from mid-November 2023, showed the employee thanking a co-worker for helping handle the Defense Ministry request. The documents do not indicate exactly how the Defense Ministry planned to use Google‘s AI technology or how it might have contributed to military operations.
Other documents dated from the spring and summer of 2024 show Google employees requesting additional access to AI technology for the IDF.
As recently as November 2024, by which time a year of Israeli airstrikes had turned much of Gaza to rubble, documents show Israel’s military was still tapping Google for its latest AI technology. Late that month, an employee requested access to the company’s Gemini AI technology for the IDF, which wanted to develop its own AI assistant to process documents and audio, according to the documents.
Spokespeople for the IDF, Google and Amazon all declined to comment for this article.
Google has previously said that the Nimbus contract with Israel’s government is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
The documents obtained by The Post do not indicate how Israel’s military used Google‘s AI capabilities, which can be used for tasks such as automating administrative functions far from the front lines.
Gaby Portnoy, director general of the Israeli government’s National Cyber Directorate, suggested at a conference early last year that the Nimbus contract directly aided combat applications, according to an article from People and Computers, the Israeli media outlet that hosted the conference.
“Thanks to the Nimbus public cloud, phenomenal things are happening during the fighting, these things play a significant part in the victory — I will not elaborate,” he said.
Israel’s military has for years been expanding its AI capabilities to speed up processing of surveillance imagery and selection of potential military targets.
After the IDF began its assault on Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks, it turned to an AI tool called Habsora developed internally to provide commanders with thousands of human and infrastructure targets to bomb, contributing to the violence in Gaza, according to a previous investigation by The Post.
Habsora is built on top of hundreds of algorithms that analyze data such as intercepted communications and satellite imagery to generate coordinates of potential military targets such as rockets or tunnels. But some Israeli commanders have raised concerns about the technology’s accuracy, The Post reported. Others worried that too much trust was being placed in the technology’s recommendations, eroding the quality of Israeli intelligence analysis.
It is unclear whether the Habsora project or its development involved the use of commercial cloud computing services.
A senior IDF official told The Post in an interview last summer that the military had invested heavily in new cloud technologies, hardware and other back-end computing systems, often in partnership with U.S. companies. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security topics.
The IDF also tested technology from multiple companies as it explored potential applications for generative AI, the technology behind the recent flourishing of chatbots and other AI tools, the official said. The uses included scanning audio, video and text from IDF systems as part of an audit of the military’s operations leading into the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.
Google has been a major contractor to Israel’s government since 2021, when it, along with Amazon, was selected by Israeli officials for the multibillion-dollar Nimbus cloud computing contract aimed at making sweeping upgrades to Israeli government technology. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.
The deal saw the rival companies build data centers in Israel and agree to provide cloud software and storage to government departments. At the time, Israeli officials told local media that the deal would include working with the Israeli military.
Nimbus has faced protests from some Google and Amazon employees, who say their companies shouldn’t do business with Israel’s government because of its treatment of Palestinians.
The loudest protests have come from Google workers who are concerned that the contract might allow its AI technology to be enlisted by Israeli military and intelligence agencies that they believe regularly violate human rights in Gaza and the West Bank.
When Google acquired the British AI start-up DeepMind in 2014, the terms of the acquisition stipulated that DeepMind technology would never be used for military or surveillance purposes, lab founder Demis Hassabis said in a 2015 interview. Today, Hassabis is one of the company’s most powerful executives and leads all its AI development work under the brand Google DeepMind, a portfolio that includes image, video and voice technologies and its generative AI assistant Gemini.
Google has AI policies that pledge the company will not apply the technology to uses that harm people. Its human rights program says the company reviews its products and policies for compliance with international standards like the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and invites employees to raise any concerns they have about the company’s work.
Last summer, a group of more than 100 employees emailed Google managers and members of the company’s human rights team asking them to review the company’s work with the Israeli military, according to a Google employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their job. The requests were ignored, the employee said.
Article from Tehran Times: Israel and Google: Partners in the first AI-enabled genocide
Fresh revelations have blown the lid off the deep involvement of US technology giants in aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The Washington Post implied on Wednesday that the first instance of genocide enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) unfolded in Gaza with the collaboration of Google and Israel.
The US media outlet disclosed that Google employees have worked to provide the Israeli military with access to the firm’s latest artificial intelligence technology from the early weeks of the regime’s war on Gaza.
According to documents obtained by the Post, a Google employee had warned that if the company didn’t quickly provide Israel’s war ministry with more access to its AI technology, the regime would turn instead to its rival Amazon. Both Google and Amazon work with Israel under the Nimbus contract.
Google and Amazon signed a joint multibillion-dollar contract with Israel in 2021.
Known as Project Nimbus, the contract was aimed at providing cloud computing infrastructure, AI and other technology services to the Israeli government and its military.
The Washington Post: Google fulfilled requests from Israel’s military for more access to AI tools, as it sought to compete with Amazon despite growing anger over the regime’s genocidal war on Gaza In early 2024, director general of the Israeli government’s National Cyber Directorate said the Nimbus contract directly aided Israel’s combat applications.
“Thanks to the Nimbus public cloud, phenomenal things are happening during the fighting, these things play a significant part in the victory — I will not elaborate,” Gaby Portnoy said, according to Israeli media.
A senior Israeli military official told The Washington Post in summer 2024 that the regime had invested heavily in new cloud technologies, hardware and other back-end computing systems, often in partnership with American companies.
Citing the official, the US media outlet said the Israeli military also tested technology from multiple companies as it explored potential applications for generative AI, the technology behind the recent flourishing of chatbots and other AI tools.
Project Nimbus has drawn the ire of Google and Amazon employees. In April last year, they staged large protests calling on the companies to cancel the contract, citing Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
Google has AI policies that pledge the company will not apply the technology to uses that harm people. But its collaboration with Israel has enabled the regime to commit the first AI-powered genocide in Gaza.
Previously, Meta which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services has been accused of pro-Israel bias in the course of the Gaza war.
The American-based tech firm has been under fire for removing the posts pertaining to solidarity with Palestinians in the face of Israel’s brutalities.
Not only has the United States provided unwavering military support for Israel in its war on Gaza, but also its big technology giants have enabled the regime’s genocide.
The Gaza war appears to be over after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect on Sunday. Israel killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in the conflict which started in October 2023.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who had been described as “Genocide Joe” for his complicity in Israel’s atrocities, handed over the keys to the White House to Donald Trump.
From now on, these keys will play a key role in facilitating Israel’s access to US technology and fueling its killing machine.
