U.S. Tech Giants Empower Israel’s Military with AI, Raising Concerns
The Israeli military has ramped up its use of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing services from U.S. tech giants like Microsoft and OpenAI during the recent conflict in Gaza and Lebanon. This surge in technology adoption has enabled Israel to identify and target alleged militants more quickly, but it has also led to a significant increase in civilian casualties.
According to an Associated Press (AP) investigation, Israel’s use of commercial AI models made in the United States marks a significant instance of such technology being used in active warfare. The Israeli military employs AI to sift through vast amounts of intelligence, intercepted communications, and surveillance data to identify suspicious activity and track enemy movements. Following a surprise Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Israel’s reliance on Microsoft and OpenAI technology skyrocketed.
The AP’s investigation, based on internal documents and interviews with current and former Israeli officials and company employees, revealed new details about how AI systems select targets and the potential pitfalls, including faulty data or flawed algorithms. Since the war began, more than 50,000 people have died in Gaza and Lebanon, and nearly 70% of Gaza’s buildings have been devastated.
Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute and former senior safety engineer at OpenAI, expressed concern over the use of commercial AI models in warfare. “This is the first confirmation we have gotten that commercial AI models are directly being used in warfare,” Khlaaf said. “The implications are enormous for the role of tech in enabling this type of unethical and unlawful warfare going forward.”
Microsoft has had a decades-long close relationship with the Israeli military. After the Hamas attack, Israel’s reliance on outside vendors increased due to strained servers. Col. Racheli Dembinsky, the military’s top IT officer, presented how AI provided “very significant operational effectiveness” in Gaza, with the logos of Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services displayed behind her.
The Israeli military’s usage of Microsoft and OpenAI’s AI spiked to nearly 200 times higher than pre-October 7 levels in March. The data stored on Microsoft servers doubled to over 13.6 petabytes between then and July 2024. Microsoft declined to comment on the AP’s findings.
OpenAI stated that it does not have a partnership with Israel’s military and prohibits the use of its products for developing weapons or harming people. However, OpenAI changed its terms of use last year to allow for “national security use cases.” Google followed suit by altering its ethics policy to permit AI use for national security purposes.
Other U.S. tech firms, including Google, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Red Hat, and Palantir Technologies, also provide cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli military. The Israel Defense Forces use Microsoft Azure to compile and analyze information gathered through mass surveillance, transcribing and translating phone calls, texts, and audio messages.
Israeli military officers acknowledged that errors can occur due to AI flaws, such as incorrect machine translations from Arabic to Hebrew. The military claims to use AI-enabled systems to identify targets, which are then independently examined by high-ranking officers to meet international law standards.
The use of commercial AI models in warfare raises significant ethical concerns and highlights the growing role of technology in modern conflict.
