“Shame on you.”

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:

archive.today link

  • Lady Butterfly English
    3•1 month ago

    Can anyone ELI5 how they’re using AI for genocide? I have awful IT skills so I don’t understand AI

    • @DrDeadCrash@programming.devEnglish
      6•1 month ago

      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.

      • Lady Butterfly English
        3•1 month ago

        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.

    • @tauren@lemm.eeEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      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.

    • @supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      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.

    • RealitätsverlustEnglish
      0•1 month ago

      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.