Google Reportedly Worked Directly With Israel's Military On AI Tools 37
In the aftermath of Israel's October 2023 ground invasion of Gaza, Google reportedly worked with the Israeli military to provide AI services while racing against Amazon for contracts. This comes despite publicly denying collaboration with the military and punishing employees protesting its involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing agreement with Israel. The Verge reports: 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 Washington 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.
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 Washington 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.
Contractors are the only ones who win from war. (Score:3)
Companies are out to make money, while companies are run by people, they are not people. As the employees for the companies only have a shared agenda of making money. Thus moral issues are often ignored.
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Google is a big company, and one unit often has no idea what other units are doing.
Hanlon's razor [wikipedia.org]: Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence.
Re: Contractors are the only ones who win from war (Score:3)
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Companies are out to make money, while companies are run by people, they are not people. As the employees for the companies only have a shared agenda of making money. Thus moral issues are often ignored.
It's also possible that better tools providing more accurate targeting saved Gazan lives, making the morality of helping hard to pin down one way or the other.
I'm not saying that's what happened -- I know absolutely nothing about it beyond what I got from skimming the summary -- just pointing out that moral questions can be complicated.
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It's also possible that better tools providing more accurate targeting saved Gazan lives
A war, as someone famously noted, is politics by other means. The "better tools" of a war are there with only one purpose - to enforce the politics that the war is "extending".
Therefore it is misguided to look at the toolkit in search for "morality". It is not in the tools, it is in the politics. The politics in this case is and has been the same since the mid-1940s, the name is "Eretz Yisrael". It has well-known equivalents in several other languages, and also a legal qualification.
"Saving lives" is the le
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We know for a fact that the IDF was targeting based on how best to effect genocide and completely annex Gaza, not on defeating Hamas. And indeed, Hamas is still there, and there are probably more recruits than ever now, thousands of war orphans and people who lost everything.
Re: Contractors are the only ones who win from war (Score:2)
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None of that changes the fact that they may have assisted with, or even engaged in war crimes. Israel's leader is a wanted war criminal, and the IDF was found to be prima facie committing genocide.
As an employee, if you ever find yourself potentially aiding crimes against humanity, refuse. Even if you get fired, it's better than being part of that, even if there is little chance of you being prosecuted.
Don't be evil? (Score:1)
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Urban warfare against guerillas that hide among the population is never going to be pretty. In fact it's pretty horrific. It may be worse in Gaza than when the US was in the Middle East because the US enjoyed significant support from the population, whereas Hamas (whom Israel is at war with) is the government of Gaza. That said, there are not efforts to kill everyone (or as many people as possible), as implied by "genocide". That's a very nasty claim that deserves a rebuttal.
This is what a real genocide loo
Re: Don't be evil? (Score:2)
Re: Don't be evil? (Score:2)
Straight after ceasefire? (Score:3, Insightful)
How come this wasn't leaked in 2023 when it was actually relevant?
I suppose there is still a case of redress and compensation for those employees. And an admission of complicity from the CEO would be nice.
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Situation normal, nobody made a realistic movie about the Vietnam war while it was happening either.
I can't condem a business seeking profit (Score:2)
Businesses are profit-making entities, and those who decry "What about 'Do no harm'!?!?!" forget that's been long gone. If you don't believe me, Google still tracks you if you're in incognito mode in Chrome.
The optics stink, idealism can be brutal but their stock price (Alphabet GOOG) is up $50/share since mid-September even with the DOJ working to break them up.
Bayer who made Zyklon B which was used in the WW2 gas chambers, their stock just closed at 21.05 EUR today. Hugo Boss (BOSS.DE) who made those styl
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I can't condem a business seeking profit
You most certainly can.
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>My point here is companies that have supported genocide directly or indirectly are still in business."
What Israel is/was doing wasn't/isn't "genocide" and comparing it that way is disingenuous. Civilian casualties are, unfortunately, high. And that is what happens in war, when those civilians elect in Hamas and support their terrorism and provocation. And then when Hamas intentionally hides all their weapons and troops intermixed into civilian areas, of course it isn't going to go well for those civi
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Civilian casualties are, unfortunately, high.
Israel set up humanitarian zones where civilians could go to for safety, then deliberately struck those "safe zones" 97 times [bbc.com].
when those civilians elect in Hamas and support their terrorism and provocation.
Funny, that's the same thing Bibi and his government does when they turn a blind eye to Jewish terrorists destroying Palestinian crops, attacking Palestinians, or stealing their homes [youtube.com].
It very well might have helped/is helping to provide better data and reduc
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>"But keeping making excuses. It's what you're being paid to do."
I have absolutely no connection or relation, whatsoever, to Israel, or any organization related to Israel, in any way. Nor do I have any Israeli or Jewish heritage, whatsoever. It is funny you think that anyone who could possibly disagree with you is somehow paid to do so.
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What Israel is/was doing wasn't/isn't "genocide"
Every expert that doesn't work for the ADL or AIPAC disagrees with you.
We don't know what Google's AI services were actually doing for Israel. It very well might have helped/is helping to provide better data and reduce combat errors and civilian causalities.
AHahAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA
*gasp*
BAhbahbaHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
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The AI was used to generate random "targets" and provide a justification for bombing them. I get the feeling this was mostly to justify things internally within the army and the Israeli government and public. That would be why they named their AI "the Gospel". That kind of branding works great for religious radicals, not so much the world at large.
Their AI is designed to automate the production of what governments used to call "faulty intelligence". Generating large quantities of BS is the thing AI excels a
Who cares? (Score:2)
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Not religion, colonialism and terrorism at one
https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
9/15 stories in the front about AI as of now (Score:2)
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You heard it here first from fleeped, the singularity is imminent because of AI!
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Re:AI dropping atomic bombs (Score:4, Informative)
"using pinpoint intelligence and analysis"
100% bullshit, Israel went at lengths to target not only medical workers and journalists, but their entire families
https://www.amnesty.org/en/lat... [amnesty.org]
"Gaza got AI analysis to minimize civilian casualties"
That is the opposite of the truth, gaza was used as a testing grounds for "AI analysis" resulting in "targeted" killing of whole families, AKA the Lanvender system (see: Palantir). You are a sick person defending pure evil
https://www.972mag.com/lavende... [972mag.com]
"Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes â" usually at night while their whole families were present â" rather than during the course of military activity. Additional automated systems, including one called âoeWhereâ(TM)s Daddy?â also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their familyâ(TM)s residences."
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using pinpoint intelligence and analysis to neutralize brutal terrorists who attack, rape, and kidnap innocent people is noble...
So why didn't they?
Israel is a nuclear power and could have simply vaporized Gaza.
Instead, they told the civilians where they could evacuate to safely, then bombed those areas repeatedly. From an outside observer's perspective, it almost looks like their goal was to kill as many civilians as possible without completely destroying plausible deniability.
If I read the numbers correctly, Israel is estimated to have killed almost as many Palestinian civilians in the last 15 months as the U.S. did in its entire war in Afghanistan over the course of two decades There's a re