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exist MicrosoftA software engineer in the company’s artificial intelligence unit held its 50th anniversary celebration on Friday and interrupted the event with a message: Stop allowing the Israeli military to use Microsoft’s AI products.
At that time, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman gave a speech.
“Mustafa, I’m ashamed of you,” said employee Ibtihal Aboussad, who walked to the stage of events in Redmond, Washington. “You claim that you are concerned about using AI permanently, but Microsoft sold AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty thousand people died, and Microsoft has powered this genocide in our region.”
Suleiman responded, acknowledging the protesters.
“Shame you. You’re a war raider. Stop using AI for genocide, Mustafa. Stop using AI for genocide in our area. You have blood on your hands. All Microsoft has blood on your hands.”
Employees working on Microsoft AI’s voice recognition engine team were quickly escorted out.
Shortly after the interruption, Aboussad sent Suleyman and other Microsoft executives an email viewed by CNBC, including the CEO Satya NadellaFinance chief Amy Hood, chief operating Carolina Dybeck Happe and company president Brad Smith.
“I speak today because I don’t see other moral options after learning that my organization is powering amid the Palestinian genocide,” Aboussad wrote in an email. “This is especially true when I witness how Microsoft is trying to correct and suppress any objections my colleagues have tried to raise this issue. Over the past year and a half, our Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities have been silent, intimidated, harassed, harassed, harassed, harassed, harassed and doxs in Microsoft’s communities and stand out on Microsoft. Give a vigil.”
A Microsoft spokesman said the company is committed to complying with the highest standards of business practices.
“We offer many avenues for all voices. It is important that we require that this way does not cause business disruption. If this happens, we ask participants to relocate.”
In recent months, AI companies have used their products militarily and entered into deals with defense industry giants and the Department of Defense.
In November, Human and Defense Contractors palantir Announcement with Amazon Web services provide us with intelligence and defense agencies to access human Claude AI models. Palantir recently signed a new five-year contract worth up to $100 million to expand U.S. military access to AI war plans.
Openai and Anduril announced a partnership that allows defense technology companies to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.” and last montha deal to expand AI to the Department of Defense to reach a multi-million-dollar flagship AI agent program.
After she started working on Microsoft’s AI platform, Aboussad wrote in an email that she was pleased to contribute to “cutting-edge AI technologies and their applications to human interests.” But, she wrote: “I was not told that Microsoft would sell my job to the Israeli military and government.”
“I am not registered to write codes that violate human rights,” Aboussad wrote, adding a link.”Apartheid without blue“petition.
During a separate Microsoft event with executives the same day, another software engineer, Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a similar protest in a speech by Nadella.
Agrawal then wrote to executives in an email that she would resign from the company.
“Earlier today, you might have stood up and called Satya in a speech on Microsoft’s 50th anniversary,” she wrote in an email. “Over the past 1.5 years, I’ve become more aware of Microsoft’s role in the military industrial complex.”
Microsoft is “a “complice” of digital weapons manufacturers that power surveillance, apartheid and genocide,” Agrawal said.
“By working for this company, we are all co-conspirators,” she added.
“Even if we don’t work directly in AI or Azure, our labor is tacit support, and our company climbing only fuels the system,” Agrawal wrote. She included an action calling for signatures. petition.
