Category: security & privacy

The Responsible AI Community in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People

As members of the Responsible AI Community, we believe that technology can serve and uplift society, but only if we are attentive to the harms and devastating impacts emergent from its development and use. We recognize the role of technology deepening and advancing discrimination, oppression, and state violence everywhere.

For these reasons, and from our full commitment to fundamental human rights, we unreservedly condemn the Israeli state’s latest violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. As a community of Responsible AI practitioners, researchers, and advocates, we also condemn the use of AI-driven technologies for warmaking, in which the aim is to make the loss of human life more efficient, and the instances in which anti-Palestinian biases are perpetuated throughout AI-enabled systems.

History did not start on October 7th, 2023, but the current crisis reflects the horrific scale and extent of violence enabled by the use of AI-driven technologies. In May 2021, Israel’s army launched what it called the world’s first “AI war” against the people of Gaza. Unit 8200 of the Israeli intelligence agency has been at the forefront of using undisclosed algorithms for military targeting within the occupied territories. In July 2023, Bloomberg reported the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) further embedded AI into lethal operations to “select targets for air strikes and organize wartime logistics,” including the use of an AI recommendation system to select aerial targets. The Israeli government’s use of AI-driven technology has led to strikes against over 11,000 targets in Gaza since the latest conflict started on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli technological-military complex predates the use of AI. It is underpinned by the intrusive biometric and surveillance technologies that laid the groundwork for exponential and expedited dehumanization of Palestinians that we see today. The NSO Group, developer of the Pegasus cyberwarfare software, has been found on the phones of human rights defenders worldwide. Moreover, facial recognition technology restricts freedom of movement across checkpoints, and tools like Smart Shooter automate killing by adding AI to automatic weapons at those checkpoints. These are the very technologies purchased and deployed by law enforcement forces elsewhere in the world to police marginalized and oppressed communities.

Beyond weaponry, algorithmic systems reify and exacerbate the dehumanization of Palestinians. Seemingly innocuous technologies have been weaponized against Palestinians. Recently, Meta’s tools translated Arabic Instagram biographies from “Palestinian, alhumduallah [Praise be to God]” to “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.” Meta-owned WhatsApp created AI-generated images of brown boys with guns when given the prompt “Palestinian.” And years ago, a Palestinian man was arrested at a border checkpoint when Facebook translated his profile message of “Good morning” to “Attack them.” These moments uncover how Islamophobic and xenophobic biases are embedded in the very design of our tech-facilitated media ecosystem.

Now, this decades long, tech-enabled apartheid and occupation of the Palestinian people has culminated in a “complete siege” of Gaza – the densely populated home to 2.1 million residents, of which 1.7 million are refugees, and half of whom are newborns and children. As reiterated by genocide scholars and human rights experts, this siege, bombardment and forced expulsion is tantamount to a genocide of the Palestinian people. To date (November 13, 2023), 11,078 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, of whom 64% are estimated to be women and children.

As members of the Responsible AI community, we must reckon with the use of AI technology to commit such scales of violence and death that we are witnessing being carried out against Palestinians. We call on our community to demand that Western governments, international bodies such as the UN, and other actors who have influence in the international community push the Israeli government for an immediate ceasefire.

We also call on the technology companies we work with, and for, to:

• Withdraw technology support to the Israeli government and cease defense contracts with the Israeli government and military;
• Protect their employees, such as those at Google and Amazon who have called for an end to Project Nimbus and bravely demanded a ceasefire, from retribution and harassment; and,
• Stop the direct, and passive, automated censorship of content revealing the plights of Gazans and Palestinians on social media platforms such as X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as these recordings and posts are one of the few ways we are able to support Gazans and Palestinians from near and far.

And finally, we call on all of our colleagues within the AI and tech sectors to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and call for an end to their siege, bombardement and occupation.

Click here to become a signatory.

The letter will be updated with signatories once a day.

Listed in alphabetical order by first name. Affiliations provided for identification purposes only.