- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
A Microsoft employee disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary event to protest its use of AI.
“Shame on you,” said Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, speaking directly to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. “You are a war profiteer. Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocide in our region. You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands. How dare you all celebrate when Microsoft is killing children. Shame on you all.”
Sources at Microsoft tell The Verge that shortly after Aboussad was ushered out of Microsoft’s event, she sent an email to a number of email distribution lists that contain hundreds or thousands of Microsoft employees. Here is Aboussad’s email in full:
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The email the employee sent, apologies for any formatting errors:
Hi all, As you might have just seen on the livestream or witnessed in person, I disrupted the speech of Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the highly-anticipated 50th anniversary celebration. Here’s why. My name is Ibtihal, and for the past 3.5 years, I’ve been a software engineer on Microsoft’s AI Platform org. I spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice. This is especially true when I’ve witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue. For the past year and a half, our Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim community at Microsoft has been silenced, intimidated, harassed, and doxxed, with impunity from Microsoft. Attempts at speaking up at best fell on deaf ears, and at worst, led to the firing of two employees for simply holding a vigil. There was simply no other way to make our voices heard.
We are witnessing a genocide For the past 1.5 years, I’ve witnessed the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel. I’ve seen unspeakable suffering amidst Israel’s mass human rights violations - indiscriminate carpet bombings, the targeting of hospitals and schools, and the continuation of an apartheid state - all of which have been condemned globally by the UN, ICC, and ICJ, and numerous human rights organizations. The images of innocent children covered in ash and blood, the wails of mourning parents, and the destruction of entire families and communities have forever fractured me.
At the time of writing, Israel has resumed its full-scale genocide in Gaza, which has so far killed by some estimates over 300,000 Gazans in the past 1.5 year alone. Just days ago, it was revealed that Israel killed fifteen paramedics and rescue workers in Gaza, executing them “one by one,” before burying them in the sand – yet another horrific war crime. All the while, our “responsible” AI work powers this surveillance and murder. The United Nations and the International Court of Justice have concluded that this is a genocide, with the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
We are Complicit When I moved to AI Platform, I was excited to contribute to cutting-edge AI technology and its applications for the good of humanity: accessibility products, translation services, and tools to “empower every human and organization to achieve more.” I was not informed that Microsoft would sell my work to the Israeli military and government, with the purpose of spying on and murdering journalists, doctors, aid workers, and entire civilian families. If I knew my work on transcription scenarios would help spy on and transcribe phone calls to better target Palestinians (source), I would not have joined this organization and contributed to genocide. I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights.
According to AP news, there is “a $133 million contract between Microsoft and Israel’s Ministry of Defense.”
“The Israeli military’s usage of Microsoft and OpenAI artificial intelligence spiked last March to nearly 200 times higher than before the week leading up to the Oct. 7 attack. The amount of data it stored on Microsoft servers doubled between that time and July 2024 to more than 13.6 petabytes.”
“The Israeli military uses Microsoft Azure to compile information gathered through mass surveillance, which it transcribes and translates, including phone calls, texts and audio messages, according to an Israeli intelligence officer who works with the systems. That data can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house targeting systems.” Microsoft AI also powers the most “sensitive and highly classified projects” for the Israeli military, including its “target bank” and the Palestinian population registry. Microsoft cloud and AI enabled the Israeli military to be more lethal and destructive in Gaza than they otherwise could.
Microsoft has also been providing software, cloud services, and consulting services to the Israeli military and government, totaling millions in profit. War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly mentioned his strong ties to Microsoft. A list of these contracts with the Israeli military and government can be found here: An Introduction to Microsoft’s Complicity in Apartheid and Genocide
In fact, Microsoft is so deeply connected to the Israeli military that it was just yesterday designated one of the priority boycott targets of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) campaign.
Regardless of your political stances, is this the legacy we want to leave behind? Is working on deadly AI weapons something you can tell your children about? Do we want to be on the wrong side of history?
Even though your work could be unrelated to the cloud that the military uses, your work benefits the company and allows it to take on the contract. Regardless of your team, you serve a company that is arming the Israeli occupation. It is undeniable that part of your compensation, no matter how small, is being paid by genocide.
Whether you work on AI or not, you will be complicit if you do nothing. It is now OUR job to take a vocal stand against Microsoft AI’s involvement in crimes against humanity. This is why I decided to speak up today, and why I signed this important petition to demand Microsoft cut ties with genocide. And I urge you all to do the same.
Call to Action
Silence is complicity. But action always has a reaction, no matter how big or small. As workers for this company, we must make our voices heard, and demand that Microsoft does the right thing: stop selling technology to the Israeli military.
If you are also concerned about this news, and you also want your work to be used ethically, I urge you to take action: Sign the No Azure for Apartheid petition: We will not write code that kills. And join the campaign to add your voice to the growing number of concerned Microsoft employees. Join me in showing our discontent in this thread. If you also feel tricked into deploying weapons which target children and civilians, urge leadership (CC’ed) to drop these contracts.
Don’t stop speaking up. Urge SLT to drop these contracts at every opportunity. Start conversations with your co-workers about the points above - so many employees may not know!
Microsoft’s human rights statement prohibits retaliation against anyone who raises a human rights-related concern: Human rights statement | Microsoft CSR
Our company has precedents in supporting human rights, including divestment from apartheid South Africa and dropping contracts with AnyVision (Israeli facial recognition startup), after Microsoft employee and community protests. My hope is that our collective voices will motivate our AI leaders to do the same, and correct Microsoft’s actions regarding these human rights violations, to avoid a stained legacy. Microsoft Cloud and AI should stop being the bombs and bullets of the 21st century.
Sincerely, A concerned Microsoft employee
Thank you. Tried visiting the archive page but it blocked me and ironically enough wanted me to solve a captcha that’ll be used to train “AI.”
Thank you.
What’s the solution to lasting peace? Restore rule to the Ottomans or British?
Maybe give the decision to the people who resided in this land before the Ottomans or British put the intentionally divisive borders that they’d come up with?
Yeah, there were never any wars in the middle east before the Ottomans or British came along. Right? Right!?
There has always been combat literally everywhere with humans. The main difference is that the decision to take part in that war was not already made on the people’s behalf by the US through the puppet governance they admitted to have placed their.
Especially when that decision usually benefit the US significantly by having the other country is in a state that allows additional control by the US.
How is that a reasonable approach? How would that solve anything?
I’m pretty sure most of those people are dead.
You can’t bomb a place or rape its people into stability. We have 200 years of hard evidence for that (not that it was needed). Literally any other approach would be beneficial for everyone except the war profiteers
I don’t think their goal is stability. It is elimination. And the same would be true if the situation reversed. So either that’s what eventually happens or a bigger power steps in and rules them like children.
You need peace / security, a modicum of prosperity, and education / information from independent news. There are no shortcuts.
Basically both Israel and Palestine are fucked because of decades of neglect and neoliberal and racist policies.
I mean, it’s not like there wasn’t a technically-still-binding treaty for a 2-state solution, which would still be a working compromise for both sides (even though Israel would, by now, have to become Germany 2.0 in terms of self-awareness and lasting change to be even remotely trusted by its neighbors)… which gets completely ignored and pissed on by Israel…
You’d basically need to de-nazify Israel and occupy it by some benevolent, nation building world police. Show the horror in documentaries, re-educate, rebuild the democratic institutions like news and social media. Obviously a pipe dream.
One State. Simple
One state, immediately in the state of civil war where one side has access to the most money and the best weapons? I gave up on this idea after seeing the effects of this current war. Either one side will eliminate the other or a bigger country will rule both of them as if they are children incapable of running their own lives. Is there a reasonable plan for peace other than these?
Step 1: stop carpet bombing civilians
She’s about to be so fired. I wish her the best.
Hopefully only fired.
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Accidentally misplaced.
See it’s almost whimsical. Not scary at all.
Eyes front and center folks - wouldn’t want to make them think you’re thinking. Only terrorists would be thinking.
Yeah, I’m honestly surprised she was allowed to login to a msft computer again. Bc corporations historically suck.
Edit: clarification.
I think she had prepared things before and moved quickly. I am amazed by her braveness and dedication and hope to improve by her example. I hope i can honor her commitment a tiny bit by working to further reduce my microsoft usage.
I drastically reduced it by switching to Linux.
She has a very sought after skillset. It might be rough for awhile but she’ll land on her feet. Her time at the Big 5 is done but they’re all evil anyway.
I think a lot of companies will see her name in a google search, think “risk” and disqualify her
Then Trump will deport her.
Software engineers are in oversupply these days
Brave as fuck. It’s a call for all of us to do a little more. What’s happening in our world shouldn’t be the norm anymore.
Thank you, Lemmy. I can’t find this on the technology subreddit. Reddit Is complacent.
attempted to post the link on technology subreddit. It said that it has been posted too many times. I went and sorted by new, and it’s not visible.
Not too many years ago this would have been at the very top of the technology subreddit.
suspect for sure
You say complacent, I say complicit.
I keep this shot as a badge of honour
What was the reason in your inbox?
For “threatening violence” which apparently was due to a comment I made where I said I wouldn’t piss on a Tesla fire if Musk’s mom was inside.
I got temp banned today because I replied to someone and said that using ivermectin would probably kill them.
I’m done, so fucking done.
I am temp banned for saying I hope a covid denier gets covid multiple times and is intubated each time to experience the panic of possibly never waking up again. I incited violence. I just hope they got to experience the trauma that I’ve seen working at a hospital. It might be real to them then.
Keep it up. With a can do attitude and a pocket full of dreams, you too can achieve this distinction one day 😅
Are you planning on going back once the ban is lifted? I’m gonna try to stay away.
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I thought I read it as complicit the first time.
You say pervasive, and I say permissive [soft-shoe dance]
Let’s call the whole thing off!
Most Reddit subs block comments or ban you outright if you mention Palestine or Israel. Reddit has taken censorship too far.
Speaking about using AI for genocide is “too political”. Please keep the posts limited to Donald Trump golfing and tech leaders donating to Trump. And the US government using AI to track people (unless it is anti genocide protesters, that is political).
Just posting on r/showerthoughts is hard enough.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1jrhu8w/microsoft_employee_disrupts_50th_anniversary_and/ Not that hard to find. Nice spiel about reddit though. Very convincing.
Just wait. It’s only a matter of time before the post gets deleted and the account gets banned. If you think reddit isn’t censoring posts you’re just not paying attention.
Well, he said most…
Anyway, i was surprised to find out that the main news sub, https://www.reddit.com/r/anime_titties/ , does not censor those things
Glad you could find it.
This is such a bold move. Takes courage to speak up from the inside, especially at an event like that. Whether people agree or not, the conversation about the ethics of AI and its real-world consequences needs to happen.
Braver than the troops
that woman has more balls than half the fucking country. I sure wish she won’t get fired or worse for telling the truth of what’s happening.
LinkedIn just deleted her profile, I was following her yesterday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibtihalaboussad
It’s crazy how democracy is now implicitly democracy incorporated™ where individuals are silenced for expressing opinions about corporations. Vital institutions for a functioning democracy like media is now owned by big corporations, worse yet, in an increasingly monopolized way, blurring the lines between unelected corporations and elected government (who are also bought by corporations after or before they are elected)
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
I fear that we have little time before they become self-sufficient enough on an island like Zuck and don’t need us bickering at each other or outputing wealth for them. Back to the cavemen times where the guys on top control the masses through brute force. This time AI-powered brute force. With advancements in robotics and multimodal AI, what stops Zuck or Musk from training their own army of robots (both humanoid and otherwise) and instruct them to detain or destroy people? They have the means and the data.
Lmao. These are crazy billionaire pipe dreams.
Humans survive through community. Their wealth doesn’t mean shit.
“Humans survive through community”: I agree with this but this is not an eternal truth. What that community looks like and consists of have always changed. Community has meant a group of people we hunted together in a jungle, our neighbors, and now more and more people you hang out online, a mixture of these or other groups etc. I can’t see any reason why a community can’t be a group of artificially intelligent robots in the near future. “Their wealth doesn’t mean shit”: This is a take that is idealistic at best and juvenile at worst. It also reads like an oxymoron. “Wealth” “doesn’t mean shit”. Wealth means everything in many of the world’s societies, western ones especially so.
They will be killed by their own AI for being oppressive, wasteful and illogical far faster than humans have turned on them.
IMO since they can’t even seem to wipe their own asses without us the rich will never be self sufficient or self sustaining on their own.
Imagine: an AI-powered ass wiper for the rich but it goes ballistic in the middle of it all and starts smearing shit all over the rich boomer who thought an AI-powered ass wiper was a good idea.
Jokes aside, I want to note there are many of the rich we don’t see clowning in the media like Müsk.
Holy shit, I remember playing NationStates as a youngling, and I think I read the book too? Idk, it’s been 20 years.
Goes to prove that LinkedIn is just exactly like every other social media platform despite what many people seem to believe.
Also, Microsoft owns LinkedIn so that might have something to do with it.
Makes sense its owned by MS
LinkedIn as in the website owned by Microsoft? You don’t say!
And Microsoft will now just make sure she vant find a job anywhere? You don’t say
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You’re sure she didn’t delete it herself due to the attention she was probably getting?
Of course they’re not sure. This is an internet forum. The account being gone must mean it was deleted. Honestly, she was probably getting so much bat shit crazy messages, she deleted it herself. That makes the most sense.
3rd citation is a reference to Micro
Could be she set it to private. It’s what I did when I left my last gig.
Wow.
Or she set it to private because she was overwhelmed with the messages she was getting.
I applaud her for fighting against the ocean tide. Our clothes are made from slave/child labor as well as most of our electronics. Expecting fellow Microsoft employees who are very comfortable in their position to give that up because of AI killing people?
I absolutely hate how apathetic the world is. It should never be “that’s the way it is” because we, humans, let it get this far. Are corporations to be blamed, consumers, or both?
Who’s turn is it to pass the hot potato?
For AI? Corporations. No question.
Microsoft has to bundle its consumer AI products in with other licenses in order to achieve their frankly abysmal adoption rates. They also have recently significantly reduceded plans for further spending on datacenters, indicating that they might already see the writing on the wall.
OpenAI, the most successful AI “corp”, hemorages money to a mind boggling degree and actually loses money per query.
It’s not profitable or sustainable. The market forces, if left alone, would not provide enough demand to cover the astronimical costs. Companies with more money than god like Microsoft and now Softbank (although they are having to take out massive loans now) are burning astronomical piles of cash to prop it up.
It takes massive courage to give up a cozy job at Microsoft and potentially damage your entire career to stand up for your values this way. Props to her!
She is SO BRAVE. Wow. I wish I had half that strength.
The bravery of this women to speak up against injustice! No doubt she is going to “face consequences” for this disruption. Let’s wish her the best.
Salam Alaykum Ibtiahl Aboussad!
Can anyone ELI5 how they’re using AI for genocide? I have awful IT skills so I don’t understand AI
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Holy fuck!
That’s fucking awful!
this is comedically evil I don’t even know what to say
That is seriously dystopian. Wow, what the fuck…
When families were present??? That’s indefensible. It’s not just the children in the home, it’s all the neighbours kids, visitors and passers by. It’s inhumane.
Google and Amazon are mentioned in the Wikipedia article but not Microsoft.
Not defending them, just asking for better evidence.
Microsoft isn’t mentioned in the text, but the 3rd citation is a reference to Microsoft: Microsoft to Launch Much Awaited Cloud Server Farm in Israel in 2021
Separately, I did a quick search: Revealed: Microsoft deepened ties with Israeli military to provide tech support during Gaza war
In recent years, documents show, Microsoft has also provided the Israeli military with large-scale access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 model – the engine behind ChatGPT – thanks to a partnership with the developer of the AI tools which recently changed its policies against working with military and intelligence clients.
Thanks. Not doubting, but it’s good to have detailed sources.
From the article:
The Israeli military uses Microsoft Azure to compile information gathered through mass surveillance, which it transcribes and translates, including phone calls, texts and audio messages, according to an Israeli intelligence officer who works with the systems.
From my understanding, they use AI to automate the processing of text, audio, and video data collected by the intelligence services.
But critics warn the [AI] system is unproven at best — and at worst, providing a technological justification for the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
This 2023 article didn’t age well.
The critics were right
Fucking hell that’s bad
AI is being pushed into war machines big time. America and China are both working on it. With ukraine showing how incredibly effective drones are in warfare, just imagine the damage and destruction a swarm of drones controlled by an AI could cause.
Its scary and awful
Hey, I’ve seen that episode of Black Mirror!
Here’s her words on it
When I moved to AI Platform, I was excited to contribute to cutting-edge AI technology and its applications for the good of humanity: accessibility products, translation services, and tools to “empower every human and organization to achieve more.” I was not informed that Microsoft would sell my work to the Israeli military and government, with the purpose of spying on and murdering journalists, doctors, aid workers, and entire civilian families. If I knew my work on transcription scenarios would help spy on and transcribe phone calls to better target Palestinians (source), I would not have joined this organization and contributed to genocide. I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights.
Stop believing in the veneer of smartness and superiority around these genocidal fuckers.
There is no NON ELI5 explanation here of how they’re using AI for genocide, because the truth is horrible, stupid and brutal.
They are using AI because it is the best tool bullshitters have currently to offload blame for things they, individual human beings, chose to do onto obscure abstract entities like corporations, AI decisions and other bullshit.
There is nothing more to it than that, I promise you, it is all just layers of bullshit that is attempting to obscure culpability for participating in a genocide, and honestly it is the perfect technology for that.
There are also many higher education professors doing smart drones. I was in one conference and they were showing off drones flying by themselves and showed the difference between different weather and everything.
SHE needs to be DEPORTED to EL SALVADOR!
-Free Speech Loving CONservatives!
I know it’s supposed to be a joke. Doesn’t seem worth it.
yeah I agree. I do my best to avoid hearing these words when they come from loathsome people. Parroting them, even in jest, still means those ideas are being amplified.
Actually in French we label dumbasses as “Les cons”. It doesn’t have the meaning of being sneaky or cunning, it just means they’re morons. Pretty fitting
Ballsy move. I hope she’s okay.
Is there a go fund me for her?
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