Google Employees Protest $1.2 bln Deal with Israel

Google employees pressure the internet-search giant to abandon its artificial intelligence work with the Israeli government, as they plan public demonstrations to draw greater attention to the controversial cloud-computing contract.

The employees call the company to end the so called 'Project Nimbus', a $1.2 billion contract through which Google and Amazon provide the Israeli government and military with AI and cloud services. The seven-year contract went into effect in July 2021.

According to the training materials reviewed by The Intercept, the company had touted the capabilities of its image analysis tools to detect faces, facial landmarks and emotions, and to track objects in videos.

A petition protesting the agreement has received 800 signatures from Google employees, according to one of the organizers. However, the company remained silent on the issue, which made the workers turn to other instruments to voice their concerns.

Google claims that cloud technology is neutral, but technology is powerful, and giving that power to an army that kills without consequences is not a neutral act,

one of Google employees told Bloomberg.