Google reportedly worked directly with Israel’s military on AI tools
Google worked with the Israeli military in the immediate aftermath of its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, racing to beat out Amazon to provide AI services, according to company documents obtained by the Washington Post.
In the weeks after Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, employees at Google’s cloud division worked directly with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — even as the company told both the public and its own employees that Google only worked with civilian government ministries, the documents reportedly show.
Weeks after the war began, an employee with Google’s cloud division escalated the IDF’s military’s requests for access to Google’s AI technology, according to the Post. In another document, an employee warned that Google needed to quickly respond to the military’s requests, or else Israel would turn to Amazon for its cloud computing needs. In a November 2023 document, an employee thanks a coworker for handling the IDF’s request. Months later, employees requested additional access to AI tools for the IDF.
Amid this, Google was punishing employees for protesting Project Nimbus, Israel’s $1.2 billion contract for Google and Amazon’s cloud computing services….