Last month, the United Nations released a report alleging that many major global corporations, including several Big Tech companies, have profited off of Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza because of their insistence on continuing to do business with the Israeli government and military. In response, according to internal messages seen by the Washington Post, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told employees that the U.N. is “transparently antisemitic.” Cool.
Brin’s response came in an internal forum for employees of Google’s artificial intelligence arm DeepMind, screenshots of which were shared with the Post. “With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides,” Brin wrote. “I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues.”
A United Nations Special Committee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) have all called Israel’s ongoing actions in Gaza a genocide. It’s unclear if Brin believes all of those organizations are also grounded in antisemitism or are “throwing around the term genocide.” In a statement to the Post, Brin said that his comments were in reference to “an internal discussion that was citing a plainly biased and misleading report.”
The report in question concluded that Google—along with other Big Tech firms like Amazon and Microsoft—by continuing to work with Israel, are partaking in a “joint criminal enterprise” and that their respective business-as-usual approaches “ultimately contribute to a whole economy that drives, supplies and enables this genocide.” It specifically points to Google’s work on Project Nimbus, a billion-dollar project aimed at providing cloud computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government and military. The company also reportedly “rushed” to sell more AI tools to Israel following the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked and killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
Google’s decision to continue working with the Israeli government has become a major point of contention among employees. Some of the company’s employees took part in protests and sit-ins on Google campuses, organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid. Google responded by firing about 50 employees who participated in the demonstrations. Additionally, the company dropped a prior pledge not to use AI in the development of surveillance tools or weapons, opening up new avenues for profit that will likely come at the expense of those who will be targeted by such tools.
According to the Washington Post, Brin’s comments on the UN “confused and upset some employees.” It doesn’t seem like he’ll be getting fired over it, though.
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