Washington, January 23 (RHC)-- The Washington Post is reporting that Google rushed to provide its latest artificial intelligence tools to the Israeli military after the Hamas-led attacks, despite protests from staff concerned that Israel was using the technology in mass killings of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Citing internal documents, the Post says Google worked directly with Israel’s Ministry of Defence and the Israeli army while publicly distancing itself from the country’s national security apparatus amid the staff protests.

The documents indicate that the Israeli Defence Ministry, in the weeks after October 7, urgently wanted to expand its use of a Google service called Vertex, which clients can use to apply AI algorithms to their own data, the Post reported.

But the documents do not indicate how the ministry planned to use the technology or how it might have contributed to military operations, it said.

And in November of last year, the documents show that a Google employee requested access to the company’s Gemini AI technology for the Israeli military, which wanted to develop its own AI assistant to process documents and audio, it said.

The report comes as human rights groups and tech experts express alarm at Israel’s use of AI tools, including a system known as Lavender, to generate lengthy lists of Palestinians as potential bombing targets.

Together with Amazon, Google entered into a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government to provide cloud storage, AI and other technology, known as Project Nimbus, in 2021.

Google fired about 50 employees last year, after they protested the contracts, according to the No Tech For Apartheid group.

According to The Washington Post, Google’s rush to provide new AI tools to Israel was in part to compete with Amazon.   The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns Amazon.

[ SOURCE: AL JAZEERA and NEWS AGENCIES ]