{"id":51620,"date":"2025-02-18T19:05:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T03:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=51620"},"modified":"2025-02-18T19:05:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T03:05:03","slug":"probes-reveal-depth-of-big-tech-complicity-in-israels-ai-driven-gaza-slaughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/18\/probes-reveal-depth-of-big-tech-complicity-in-israels-ai-driven-gaza-slaughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Probes Reveal Depth of Big Tech Complicity in Israel’s AI-Driven Gaza Slaughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several recent journalistic investigations \u2013 including one published Tuesday by The Associated Press<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 have deepened the understanding of how Israeli forces are using artificial intelligence and cloud computing systems sold by U.S. tech titans for the mass surveillance and killing of Palestinians in Gaza. <\/a><\/p>\n

The AP<\/em>‘s Michael Biesecker, Sam Mednick, and Garance Burke found<\/a> that Israel’s use of Microsoft and OpenAI technology “skyrocketed” following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. <\/a><\/p>\n

“This is the first confirmation we have gotten that commercial AI models are directly being used in warfare,” Heidy Khlaaf, chief artificial intelligence scientist at the AI Now Institute<\/a> and a former senior safety engineer at OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, told the AP<\/em>. “The implications are enormous for the role of tech in enabling this type of unethical and unlawful warfare going forward.”<\/p>\n

As Biesecker, Mednick, and Burke noted:<\/p>\n

Israel’s goal after the attack that killed about 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages was to eradicate Hamas, and its military has called AI a “game changer” in yielding targets more swiftly. Since the war started, more than 50,000 people have died in Gaza and Lebanon and nearly 70% of the buildings in Gaza have been devastated, according to health ministries in Gaza and Lebanon.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the AP<\/em> report, Israel buys advanced AI models from OpenAI and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. While OpenAI said it has no partnership with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in early 2024 the company quietly removed<\/a> language from its usage policy that prohibited military use of its technology.<\/p>\n

The AP<\/em> reporters also found that Google and Amazon provide cloud computing and AI services to the IDF via Project Nimbus<\/a>, a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021. Furthermore, the IDF uses Cisco and Dell server farms or data centers. Red Hat, an independent IBM subsidiary, sells cloud computing services to the IDF. Microsoft partner Palantir Technologies also has a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military.<\/p>\n

Google told the AP<\/em> that the company is committed to creating AI “that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security.”<\/p>\n

However, Google recently removed<\/a> from its Responsible AI principles a commitment to not use AI for the development of technology that could cause “overall harm,” including weapons and surveillance.<\/p>\n

The AP<\/em> investigation follows a Washington Post<\/em> probe published<\/a> last month detailing how Google has been “directly assisting” the IDF and Israel’s Ministry of Defense “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.”<\/p>\n

Google fired<\/a> dozens of workers following their participation in “No Tech for Apartheid” protests against the use of the company’s products and services by forces accused of genocide<\/a> in Gaza.<\/p>\n

“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,” wrote Gerrit De Vynck, author of the Post<\/em> report.<\/p>\n

“As recently as November 2024, by which time a year of Israeli airstrikes had turned much of Gaza to rubble<\/a>, documents show Israel’s military was still tapping Google for its latest AI technology,” De Vynck added. “Late that month, an employee requested access to the company’s Gemini AI technology<\/a> for the IDF, which wanted to develop its own AI assistant to process documents and audio, according to the documents.”<\/p>\n

Previous investigations have detailed how the IDF also uses Habsora, an Israeli AI system that can automatically select airstrike targets at an exponentially faster rate than ever before.<\/p>\n

“In the past, there were times in Gaza when we would create 50 targets per year. And here the machine produced 100 targets in one day,” former IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi told<\/a> Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine<\/em>, a joint Israeli-Palestinian publication, in 2023. Another intelligence source said that Habsora has transformed the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” in which the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s what happens if Israel\u2019s AI system selects you for assassination. @AJIunit<\/a> talked to experts about the @972mag<\/a> investigation that revealed the extent to which Israel uses AI to target Palestinians. pic.twitter.com\/8wLbD13DiS<\/a><\/p>\n

— AJ+ (@ajplus) November 11, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n