Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters chained themselves outside the entrance to Google’s annual developers conference on Tuesday to protest the tech company’s ties to Israeli military projects. Thousands of attendees waiting to enter Google I/O were redirected to another entrance and the event began on time.
Groups, including the No Tech for Genocide coalition and other groups across the Bay Area, held a sign that read “Google Stop Fueling Genocide.” They shouted “we won’t stop until they take down Nimbus,” referring to a $1.2 billion project backed by Amazon and Google that provides cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
Speaking to the crowd, one protester said that people had gathered in Mountain View to attend Google’s highly anticipated annual conference, but that protesters were there to share “the real story.”
Google is scheduled to announce major product updates at today’s conference, most of them focused on AI.
“What you won’t hear from today’s speakers is that right now, as I stand here before you, the state of Israel is using Google technology to execute the first AI-powered genocide in history,” they said.
Several of the attendees were current and former employees of the company, including Ariel Koren, a former Google worker who says she was kicked out of the company in 2022 for speaking out against Project Nimbus.
He said contracts like Project Nimbus have enabled “the first AI-powered genocide in history.” Protesters oppose such technology, which they say is being tested in Gaza but is likely to be replicated elsewhere in the future.
“We are here to say that we cannot stand by while this company fuels this genocide and profits from it,” he said.
“(Google) not only creates the infrastructure for the Israeli military to expand its crimes against humanity, but these tools are being tested and trained in Palestine to be exported to armies around the world, who can then commit the same types of violence.” . ,” she said. “We could be seeing the world’s first AI-powered genocide. But what Google is trying to do is ensure this isn’t the world’s last.”
Dozens of additional protesters gathered on the streets leading up to the event, shouting: “Google it, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide.” They distributed pamphlets aimed at Google employees, persuading them to speak out against the company’s military contracts.
Last month, Google fired more than 50 workers for participating in a pro-Palestinian protest in which they occupied Google campuses in New York City and Sunnyvale, California. In 2018, the company saw mass employee walkouts over its handling of sexual harassment.