Tech giants Google and Amazon are facing mounting protests over their involvement in Project Nimbus, a cloud computing service contract with the Israeli government.
As per the LA Times, dozens of Google employees demonstrated the “harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship” of Arab company workers on Tuesday by sitting for 10 hours at the tech giant’s California headquarters. They reportedly wore shirts that said, “Drop Project Nimbus” and raised a banner that read “No tech for genocide.”
“As a Software Engineer in Google Cloud, it is horrifying to think that the code I write could be used by the Israeli Military in the first ever AI powered genocide,” Google Cloud software engineer William (Billy) Van Der Laar told the LA Times. “We did not come to Google to work on technology that kills. By engaging in this contract leadership has betrayed our trust, our AI Principles, and our humanity.”
Google and Amazon sold Project Nimbus to the Israeli government in 2021 to the tune of $1.2 billion. The project involves providing AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli government and military. Google has revealed that its contract with the Israeli government is not for military purposes but rather for civilian needs such as finance, health, transportation, and education.
The protest was arranged by an anti-Israel activist group called “No Tech for Apartheid” whose members fear that the technology provided under Project Nimbus could be used to increase surveillance of Arabs and facilitate the expansion of Israel’s “illegal settlements” in Judea and Samaria.
