Employees of the US-based tech giant Google have protested against a $1.2 billion deal with the Israeli government at its headquarters in New York City, California, and Seattle.
Known as Project Nimbus, the joint agreement between Google and Amazon signed in 2021 seeks to provide artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing infrastructure, and other technology services to the Israeli government and military. The Israeli government and military have come under fire for its war on Gaza, which has been dubbed a "genocide" by several nations and UN experts.
Since beginning the military campaign in October, Israel has demolished large sections of the Palestinian coastal enclave and murdered over 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The nation has defended the shelling, claiming it is directed at Hamas militants who carried out a fatal strike on October 7.
This is a look at the reasons why IT professionals are against military partnerships in the face of AI and other technology misuse in, among other places, the battles in Gaza and Ukraine.
Why are Google workers protesting Project Nimbus?
Leading the sit-ins last week were No Tech For Apartheid, a group that has been organizing Google workers against Project Nimbus since 2021. Workers are against their company's affiliations with Israel, which is also being accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice for its invasion of Gaza.
Technical personnel are clamoring for the right to know how their labor will be put to use. They worry the technology could be abused because there is little information available about the initiative. Workers at Facebook parent Meta and Amazon have also had disputes with their employers regarding war connections.
Google staff software engineer Tina Vachovsky said,
"It is impossible to feel excited and energised to work when you know your company is providing the Israeli government products that are helping it commit atrocities in Palestine," in a testimonial posted on the No Tech Apartheid website.
As part of Project Nimbus, Google is providing advanced AI capabilities to Israel, according to a 2021 story by the US-based news source The Intercept.
Israeli targeting of Palestinians with AI has disturbed academics and activists, while legal experts argue that using AI in combat is against international law.
"There's actually a shocking lack of transparency around exactly what this project covers, outside of providing interoperable, comprehensive cloud computing, which is essentially systems of data storage, data management and sharing,"
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor Ramesh Srinivasan told Al Jazeera.
Naturally, information for the Israeli governments also probably includes the Israeli [army]. This endeavor, then, recognizes and perhaps emphasizes the close ties that large US technology corporations have to both the so-called military-industrial complex and to actively supporting and assisting the Israeli government.”
“It is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,”
the internet behemoth declared in a statement. The massive technology company claims to collaborate with many nations worldwide, including Israel.
Last Monday, the firm let go of at least 28 workers for "violating Google's code of conduct" and "policy on harassment, discrimination and retaliation". Furthermore, the sit-ins at Google's New York and Sunnyvale headquarters resulted in the arrest of at least nine employees.
Last Monday, in a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai gave a veiled warning.
We can produce incredible things and put brilliant ideas into practice because of our lively, open conversation culture. That has to be preserved. Ultimately, though, we are a workplace, and as such, our rules and expectations are explicit: this is not the place to act in a way that disturbs or makes coworkers feel unsafe, to try to use the firm as a personal platform, to argue politics or fight over contentious matters. We cannot afford to be sidetracked at this crucial a time for our business, he said.
The warning has not, however, deterred IT personnel. "Speaking out against the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide," said Google software engineer Mohammad Khatami, who was detained for taking part in the sit-in in New York, to US outlet Democracy Now.
The No Tech For Apartheid group claims that Google fired another 20 protestors this week, increasing the total number of persons sacked to almost 50.
"No Tech For Apartheid spokesperson Jane Chung said on Tuesday that Google's goals are clear: the company is trying to silence its employees, suppress dissent, and reassert its power over them."
Google claimed to have let go the extra employees after its inquiry turned up information from colleagues who had been "physically disrupted" and revealed staff members who had concealed their identities with masks and without carrying their identification badges. Numbers fired were not mentioned.