Microsoft celebrated the company’s 50th anniversary on Friday, which included all three events from its current and former CEO, but was not surprised. edge Earlier reports said an employee named Ibtihal Aboussad destroyed a speech by Mustafa Suleyman, the company’s head of AI, saying the company was accomplice in the genocide by selling its technology to Israel.
“Shame you,” Absad spoke directly to Suleiman. “You are a war raider. Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocide in our area. You have blood on your hands. All Microsoft has blood on your hands. You dare to celebrate everyone when Microsoft kills children.
Aboussad’s LinkedIn profile shows that she is a software engineer on the AI platform team. She reportedly sent a memo to many internal stock lists after being taken out of the event.
“We offer many avenues for all voices. It is important that we require that this way do not cause business disruption. If that happens. If that happens, we require participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring that our business practices hold the highest standards.”
Aboussad’s memorandum quoted Gaza’s death toll in the ongoing war with Israel and continued to point out that Microsoft had a $133 million contract with the country’s defense ministry:
The use of Microsoft and Openai artificial intelligence by the Israeli military soared nearly 200 times in March last year than before the October 7 attack. The amount of data it stores on Microsoft servers doubled between that time and July 2024, reaching before 13.6.
Microsoft AI also powers the Israeli military, including its “target bank” and the Palestinian population registry, for the most “sensitive and highly classified projects.” Microsoft Cloud and AI make the Israeli military more deadly and destructive in the Gaza Strip.
The technology industry has long established complex relationships with the defense sector. Employees at large tech companies have always opposed the use of their work on the battlefield. Despite the profitable income opportunities offered to defend contracts, leaders of these companies are sensitive to these concerns.
However, things have changed in recent years, especially after the beginning of the Ukrainian war and rising tensions around the South China Sea. Meanwhile, companies like Google and Meta, including Palantir and Anduril have become new stars and have shifted power from employees to leadership, making it difficult for employees to oppose such contracts.
Aboussad wrote about this objection in her memo, the technicians, for a long time, that “When I moved to the AI platform, I was delighted to contribute to cutting-edge AI technologies and their application to the human benefit: accessibility products, translation services and tools that leave everyone and organizations incapacity to achieve more, workers and civilian families.”
One of the biggest problems with using AI on the battlefield is the tendency of operators to trust plans and delay their attack plans. Previously, Israeli soldiers have been reported to rely on AI to quickly identify targets without having to review their accuracy. Latest information revealed in the Signal Gate scandal shows how military chiefs will indistinguish and cause collateral damage with impunity – the Trump administration authorized the strike of a civilian residential building because the target’s girlfriend lives there, a clear violation of humanitarian law.
Big tech companies have been looking for applications for AI and found it in the military. But even Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey, who makes defense drones and other technologies, expressed sympathy for Big Tech employees, who signed on to make consumer applications just to find their jobs for defense applications. At least those who join Anduril know they are registering.
Microsoft has conducted other protests on its contract with the Israeli military. In February, five employees were evacuated from the Town Hall event after standing on a shirt wearing shirts that spelled out the name of CEO Satya Nadella and asked a question: “Did our code kill the kid?”
