Google responds to requests from Israeli military for increased access to its artificial intelligence tools
Date
1/23/2025 7:02:47 AM
(MENAFN) The Washington Post revealed that google has responded to requests from the Israeli military for increased access to its artificial intelligence tools, aiming to compete with Amazon in the tech industry. According to internal documents, Google employees began supplying the Israeli Defense Ministry with access to the company's advanced AI technologies in the early weeks of the Israel-Gaza war. Despite the company's public efforts to distance itself from the Israeli military following employee protests against a cloud computing contract with Israel’s government (known as Nimbus), Google continued to cooperate. Last year, the company terminated over 50 employees who protested the contract, fearing that its technologies could aid military programs and intelligence operations harmful to Palestinians.
The escalation of requests for access to Google's AI technologies came after the October 7, 2023, "Al-Aqsa Flood" attack. Internal documents revealed that the Israeli Ministry of Defense was pushing for larger-scale access to Google’s Vertex service, which allows users to apply AI algorithms to their data. One employee warned that if Google did not comply quickly, the Israeli army might turn to Amazon, its competitor in cloud computing, which also works with the Israeli government under the Nimbus contract. Further documents from November 2023 show that Google was continuing to meet the Israeli army's demand for AI technologies, including providing access to its Gemini AI platform, which the IDF hoped to use for developing its own AI assistant for processing documents and audio. The documents do not clarify how the Israeli military is specifically using Google's AI technology, but they reveal ongoing collaboration despite internal protests and controversy over the potential use of these technologies in military operations.
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