IN pulverised Gaza, life has become almost medieval for traumatised residents but the Israeli offensive that obliterated their homes and killed their neighbours is modern and has raised questions over the role of Big Tech in war.
More than any other major conflict this century, the Israel-Hamas war has spotlighted how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning can be used on the battlefield, and what responsibility the makers of these tools should bear.
"From the early days of the war, the campaign has been framed as an opportunity to test and refine how AI is used in the field of war," said Sophia Goodfriend, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University who studies Israel's use of AI and automation in war.
"Gaza, like Ukraine, is seen as a war lab for the future."
Employees at Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet Inc's Google became increasingly concerned over whether their companies were empowering Israel's military forces after a slew of reports alleging the use of Big Tech products in Gaza.
Outrage over civilian casualties — the death toll in Gaza stands at more than 41,600 with at least 10,000 believed missing under the rubble — has fanned the flames of employee anger.
Some employees have joined workplace protests and been fired, some have left and others have voiced their support for Palestinians in internal groups.
Around this time last year, the number of Amazon workers who had joined a virtual community for employees who support Palestinian rights numbered around 800 people.
Today, it has grown fivefold, said an Amazon employee.
"Knowing how Amazon Web Services are being used (in Gaza) is enough to drive people to get involved," the employee told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and capturing around 250 hostages.
Goodfriend said the conflict in Gaza revealed the "lethal" effect of the application of high-tech systems in war.
"There's no way Israel could have the technical infrastructure that they do without the support of private companies, and cloud computing infrastructure — they just wouldn't be able to operate their AI systems without the major tech conglomerates."
Very little is known about how Big Tech systems are being used by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Much scrutiny has focused on Project Nimbus, a US$1.2 billion contract jointly awarded to Google and Amazon Web Services to supply the Israeli government with cloud computing infrastructure, AI and other services.
When it unveiled the project in May 2021, the Israeli government said it was intended to "provide a comprehensive and thorough response for the provision of cloud services to the government, the security services and other entities".
Later that year, Google and Amazon employees published an open letter in the Guardian, condemning the project, which they said "allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land".
Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been a slew of media reports alleging the use of Project Nimbus technology by the Israel military in the crowded strip, home to 2.3 million people.
In April, Time magazine had seen a Google company document that showed the firm provides cloud computing services to the Israeli Defence Ministry, and that it had negotiated deepening its partnership during the war in Gaza.
In August, non-profit +972 Magazine, run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists, published a story citing a leaked recording of a senior Israeli commander confirming the army was using cloud storage and AI services from Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
The previous November, the magazine had published a report saying that the Israeli Defence Forces used AI to generate targets in Gaza.
Following that report, a group of tech workers known as No Tech for Apartheid said that United States tech companies doing business with the IDF, including Google and Amazon, were "enabling the first AI-powered genocide".
Microsoft — which had cloud contracts with the IDF that preceded Nimbus — is still providing cloud computing services to the military, according to reports.
"Real humans are being fed into machines, and processed by algorithms, and then with the press of a button it's decided if they get to live another day," said Hossam Nasr, a Microsoft worker involved in the No Tech for Apartheid campaign.
*The writers are from Reuters
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times