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In an Open Letter, Microsoft Employees Urge the Company To Not Bid on the US Military's Project JEDI (medium.com)
On Tuesday, Microsoft expressed its intent
to bid on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract -- a contract that represents a $10 billion project to build cloud services for the Department of Defense. The contract is massive in scope and shrouded in secrecy, which makes it nearly impossible to know what technologies Microsoft would be building for the Department of Defense. At an industry day for JEDI, DoD Chief Management Officer John H. Gibson II explained the program's impact, saying, "We need to be very clear. This program is truly about increasing the lethality of our department." This has ruffled a few feathers inside the Redmond-based software giant. In an open letter published Saturday, an unspecified number of Microsoft employees stated their disapproval. They wrote: Many Microsoft employees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war. When we decided to work at Microsoft, we were doing so in the hopes of "empowering every person on the planet to achieve more," not with the intent of ending lives and enhancing lethality. For those who say that another company will simply pick up JEDI where Microsoft leaves it, we would ask workers at that company to do the same. A race to the bottom is not an ethical position. Like those who took action at Google, Salesforce, and Amazon, we ask all employees of tech companies to ask how your work will be used, where it will be applied, and act according to your principles.
We need to put JEDI in perspective. This is a secretive $10 billion project with the ambition of building "a more lethal" military force overseen by the Trump Administration. The Google workers who protested these collaborations and forced the company to take action saw this. We do too. So we ask, what are Microsoft's A.I. Principles, especially regarding the violent application of powerful A.I. technology? How will workers, who build and maintain these services in the first place, know whether our work is being used to aid profiling, surveillance, or killing? Earlier this year Microsoft published "The Future Computed," examining the applications and potential dangers of A.I. It argues that strong ethical principles are necessary for the development of A.I. that will benefit people, and defines six core principles: "fair, reliable and safe, private and secure, inclusive, transparent, and accountable."
With JEDI, Microsoft executives are on track to betray these principles in exchange for short-term profits. If Microsoft is to be accountable for the products and services it makes, we need clear ethical guidelines and meaningful accountability governing how we determine which uses of our technology are acceptable, and which are off the table. Microsoft has already acknowledged the dangers of the tech it builds, even calling on the federal government to regulate A.I. technologies. But there is no law preventing the company from exercising its own internal scrutiny and standing by its own ethical compass. Further reading: Google Drops Out of Pentagon's $10 Billion Cloud Competition.
We need to put JEDI in perspective. This is a secretive $10 billion project with the ambition of building "a more lethal" military force overseen by the Trump Administration. The Google workers who protested these collaborations and forced the company to take action saw this. We do too. So we ask, what are Microsoft's A.I. Principles, especially regarding the violent application of powerful A.I. technology? How will workers, who build and maintain these services in the first place, know whether our work is being used to aid profiling, surveillance, or killing? Earlier this year Microsoft published "The Future Computed," examining the applications and potential dangers of A.I. It argues that strong ethical principles are necessary for the development of A.I. that will benefit people, and defines six core principles: "fair, reliable and safe, private and secure, inclusive, transparent, and accountable."
With JEDI, Microsoft executives are on track to betray these principles in exchange for short-term profits. If Microsoft is to be accountable for the products and services it makes, we need clear ethical guidelines and meaningful accountability governing how we determine which uses of our technology are acceptable, and which are off the table. Microsoft has already acknowledged the dangers of the tech it builds, even calling on the federal government to regulate A.I. technologies. But there is no law preventing the company from exercising its own internal scrutiny and standing by its own ethical compass. Further reading: Google Drops Out of Pentagon's $10 Billion Cloud Competition.
But A-OK when Obama did it!
They're Microsoft employees. Send them back to India!
Shouldn't LucasFilm sue the U.S. government for trademark infringement?
and go build one in China instead.
These people are fucking nuts. Im convinced that if a real sentient AI is ever possible and if its ever invented at one of these companies, they would rather send it to China than keep it here.
Their hatred of the US is remarkable.
As bad as the US government often is, there are worse ones out there, and China is one that comes to mind. We are headed to a Cuban missile crisis type moment when they build their first base on the US border to Mexico. Its going to happen. They are crawling all over Latin America, so maybe it is time to choose sides.
I wonder what these same employees would do when China comes knocking on their freedom. Hmmm.
Many Microsoft employees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war. When we decided to work at Microsoft, we were doing so in the hopes of "empowering every person on the planet to achieve more," not with the intent of ending lives and enhancing lethality
It's for this very reason that these employees should quit. I mean...the USA is a "free" country, no? In fact they (the USA), pride themselves with the mantra:
"The land of the free."
Further, they (the people), and the media "echo chamber" *cough* *cough*, refer to their president as being the "leader" of the free world.
So, why don't they just quit?
I understand that folks here may simply say that the same freedom I am talking about allows them to do exactly whet they are doing. Just quit...problem solved.
This is about foreigners who have no attachment to the country in which they work.
Die by the sword.
They had zero problems inventing the Win10 data hoovering technology, which is a massive systematic invasion of privacy. What a pack of idiots.
With a very large majority of companies like Google and MS being foreign workers (many Chinese), I wonder why US based companies like them should give the slight fsck about what they will paid employees think.
Speaking as an American who doesn't want Microsoft crapware running anywhere inside of our fleets, tanks, planes, subs, or any DoD computer systems, I fully support the self-righteous soy-latte-sipping Microserfs opposing contracts with the DoD.
If you did you already actively gave approval for military action. Sorry but trying to pretend you are too good of a person when you already voted for a president that takes unilateral military action in nations we are not at war with. That is active consnet folks. If you say pull the trigger refusing the make the bullets is just lying to yourself.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Imagine if this mentality spread to other areas, such as agriculture? "We REFUSE to feed our soldiers because they may use our food during combat!"
If Microsoft lets their employees run the show, they may as well close up shop because then there will be no more sales of any Microsoft software, period.
Although I must say, Azure sucks hardcore in comparison to AWS. Perhaps their employees know this and are just trying to deflect their terrible product onto something else.
Ill take it.
Oh sure, helping the DoD is bad and evil, but meanwhile we can help the Chinese censor, surveil, and destroy the lives of their subjects with impunity.
To the Google and Microsoft employees: go fuck yourselves.
Microsoft already, daily, aids in the lethality of the American warfighter. The US DISA has 3.5 million licenses - not counting all the suppliers - of office running, which, albeit, aids in war planning (please no office trashing, the stuff worksl, and implicitly lethality. So if the employees are against that, then they better get ready for a huge stock plunge - and devalued options - as they exit selling office etc to anyone who supplies the military.
Now, re AI, I'm not AI savvy enough to know if the $10B RFP is really about AI, or if government contractors or mitre could sniff AI vs basic ML.
My last thought, is that a LOT of tech that msft employees use every day (satellites, jets, engines, hell the internet was a DARPA funded project). Methinks those signing this letter could use a history lesson and some understanding of the term hypocrisy.
The reality is we have never had as many potential enemies as we have with China, Iran, N Korea, even a big question mark with Russia. Yet the snowflakes seem to think these countries poise no threat to the US. Wonder what their conscious will say when one attacks us?
Amazon is all like, "excellent."
China is like, "lol cucks."
If you let MS crapware infest anything related to the military, that thing will be pwned remotely.
This is not a company known for their excellent software security.
I really wish we could all be naive hyper-liberal globalist-humanists. I would jump on that bandwagon in a second if the whole world went in that direction at the same time. But it isn't. There are really bad actors in this world who would like to destroy all our rights, freedoms, and our safety, even our lives. And the nation is the container of those things. If we do not take actions to protect the container of everything we have and are those things will spill out, destroyed. So, feel smug, hyper-liberals, but you will be responsible for your own demise. And yes boys and girls, sometimes you as a nation have to kill those people trying to kill you. That's the real world. Grow up.
E Proelio Veritas.
Microsoft is just like any other mercenary.
They will take the money and get on with the job that goes with it
Do we really need to listen to their wants about our military?
I'm sure that there are plenty of older, very experienced, very highly qualified computer professionals that have been victims of age discrimination, who will be happy to relieve them of their salaries - if you don't like the company's direction, be honest with everybody and quit.
This is the what happens when national defense is the problem of "some other kids" who you will never meet or work with. At least with a draft, everyone gets involved. Well, everyone except for the really rich jerks who have a mommy and daddy with connections, but they will be pro-defense no matter what they do.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Microsoft has been working with DoD for years, from providing Windows and Office licenses, to servers, to IT infrastructure support, and NOW some employees are getting picky about who Microsoft works with? Since this open letter was supported by an "unspecified number of Microsoft employees stated their disapproval" it would be nice to know just how many. I suspect it's a very small (less than 0.1% of their workforce) number of employees behind the open letter. Microsoft should uncover who they are and remind them, in no uncertain terms, that they are employees and have no say in company strategy and policy. If they persist, then Microsoft would be well within its rights to fire their asses.
Surely Microsoft should be focussing their efforts on bidding for the SITH (Strategic Intelligence Tactical Host) program?
When Obama bombed all those countries and funded ISIS those same Microsoft employees didn’t say a word. I wonder why that is.
What do you expect from people who where not born in the USA? All liberal leaning big tech companies are filled with people who don't care about America - they are angry that their own home countries are still shit-holes - they don't want America to be strong.
Did any of these folks notice the enterprise licensing agreements Microsoft has with US (and other) DoD/MoDs? Did they not think their operating systems, database products, and development suites weren't already being used to do these kind of things. Already enablers....... time to quit if you object.....
First, the question should be what is a server network going to be used for? The answer is that this is NOT a weapon. It may be used to TRACK weapons. It may be used to track how effective (i.e. lethal) a weapon is. It may be used to hold intelligence about a field, a base, etc. It may also be used to track terrorists and enemy movements.
Far more likely, it would become ALL OF THAT.
BUT, even when tracking terrorists, it is not about killing them and everything around them. The military does this stuff to not only track a terrorists, but try to figure out when they are away from civilians, and ideally around other terrorists. It does no good for ANY military to kill civilians. They know that. That is why Russia and China go to great lengths to NOT take responsibility for their actions (such as blowing planes out of the sky, re-education camps, invasions of India, Phillipines, Japan, etc). America's DoD, in fact, I would say the western military, work hard to limit collateral damage.
I would imagine that THIS CLOUD would likely be used for such things.
Secondly, it is worth nothing that both Russia and China are working hard on such things. Most likely if they, esp China, ever feel that they ahve a military advantage, they WILL attack on a full-scale war. This is not as true for Russia since they KNOW that MAD would likely occur. BUT, the majority of CHinese leaders, including Xi, believe that not only is a war with the west ultimately winnable, but more importantly, a nuclear war is winnable. IOW, the majority of Chinese leaders do not accept the MAD premise. As such, the only real way to stop this war, is to make sure that the west remains militarily stronger than CHina (not just strong; it has to be that Chinese leaders KNOW that they can not win a regular war with the west, esp against Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, India, etc, or nations that CHina has historically invaded ).
All in all, it is in Google's and MS's, AND THEIR EMPLOYEES, best interest to do this work. If need be, then both companies should spin off side companies and let them do the work. I am sure that plenty of employees will be able to get clearance and then do the work.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Squeak long and loud when you are outraged at A, but are completely blind to (if the same principles behind outrage at A are applied) B through Z and more. Honestly, if these people claim to be smart, well, they should just give up now and go get a job flipping burgers.
What do these people think that nation states are for? Their only purpose IS to exert force, both externally and internally.
Wrong country moron. You meant to say America.
Now only Russia and China will continue with no defense for the US! Awesome propaganda plan, I wonder how the Native Americans or the Samurai's fared when they didn't (or wouldn't in some cases) acquire as lethal weapons as their enemies to match the their strength?
Microsoft, dominant player through aggressive monopoly abuse, having recently shoved down everyone's throats an OS that hits the evil trifecta of being malware, spyware, and adware as it fights against user control and privacy at every turn... that Microsoft would compromise their ethics and principles in the name of short term profit by helping the military kill people better in our numerous pointless wars?? I'm shocked. Oh please, help me my heart has stopped from the surprise. I gasped so hard in shock I then choked too.
Bad news ... Windows runs wars.
It is used to control drones, warships, write death reports, create propaganda, text, audio, videos, and to hook the next generation on games so they like playing at war.
The top Xbox games are wargames:
* Gears of War
* Hitman
* Metal Gear Solid
* Call of Duty
Decide if you want to work at the company and help your country or not, but don't act like you are only doing "gods/dogs work" in your current roles.
Which OS the opposing countries and terrorist use? MS-Windows. Even if you are making Bible-thumper apps, the opposite side is using them to find passages to use against people of that faith. Same for Quran apps.
Microsoft Windows has been used in weapons systems for a very long time, at least since Windows XP that I know of for Navy and Army. That horse left the barn decades ago .
Actually no, Obama started none of those, you lying Trumptarded faggot.
Santa isn't real, and neither is God. ... just like representative democracy.
Communism is a delusion, agreed
Your money and salaries are based on what a bunch of coke-heads at the "stock market" feel like, today.
Even your personalities are not real. "Smile or die" is the mantra.
Not even your tits are real!
And you're not the land of the free, nor the home of the brave.
No, I don't hate you. I don't even patronize you. I just feel bad about the denial that harms you.
I mean, come on. "land of the free" comes out of a time of slaves and racism. ... everywhere".
"Home of the brave", in a country that pads ALL the things in safety foam and slaps warning labels on ALL the things. And fights its offensive wars, hiding behind proxy armies (remember Afghanistan?) and remote-controlled drones, like complete pussies. Using hammers, err, nukes on flies, because it is so scared. A population of fearmongered scaredy cats, living from "shocking" moment to "creepy" alley. with "the enemy out there
Instead of actually making US-America great! Advancing humanity, and all that ...
Look here: You're literally justifying mass-murder, to keep clinging to your delusion. ... I don't know ... stop?
That is a straight-up fact.
Don't you think that is a point, where you should just,
Take your self-righteous indignation and make believe leaving your children wide open to the deadly whims of despots is going to save you.
Because I can tell you now crawling in a hole and pretending they will not come to knock your door down has NEVER EVER WORKED!
They want your gold and they will rob/rape/kill your women and children to get it.
That is a FACT!
Google employees revolt. Google pulls their bid.
MS employees revolt. MS pulls their bid.
That leaves AWS. Who it was tailored to in the first place. And who wouldn't care a bit if their employees revolt.
So much for the gov't "STOP BEZOS" mentality
I wonder if the unspecified number is 0, and this whole thing was written by an ex-Microsoft employee looking the make a fuss.
Aa a US citizen, I beg of you, Microsoft, to not bid on the JEDI project.
No country should trust their secrets to such crappy technology.
If you really didn't like the military, you would encourage anything that led to the performance of the military depending on Microsoft.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
China could've taken the entire Korean peninsula if they had wanted. They want hegemony and eventual ethnic domination, but not through war unless absolutely necessary.
"ManyÂMicrosoftÂemployees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war."
A bit hypocritical when you consider they have absolutely no problem waging war against their customers. From Clippy to Windows 'telemetry', among many things. Next up: "Renting Windows 10 For Beginners" and "Recovering Lost Data After Windows Update - A Guide For The Consumer".
Surely 'SITH' would be more apt for the US military?
Would we really want the fighter jets to crashdump and freeze up whilst in the middle of battle? ... Nah!
perhaps this is for the best if Microsoft lose the bid.
And NOW theyre concerned about their employerd cosy relationship with totalitarian fascists? Hah. That horse bolted loooong ago plebs.
Tell us s'more bullshit about your giant cocks and magnificent culture and accomplishments in forgery and toxic pollution.
DIE IN A FIRE
The military has been using Microsoft products since at least the 1990's. This would be nothing new really.
Its plain. When its citizens don't agree that the country is worth protecting in the most effective ways possible, then other countries are going to deploy similar technology and defeat us. Its similar to hang together or hang separately. I'm glad I'm 71, and likely won't live to see the ultimate calamity of Chinese or maybe even Indian subjugation of the American people.
MS and the D.o.D has been doing work with each other years, crap like this is old news.
Just take a look at what they did with their old Canyon Park Data center.
Um, they all do realize DoD already uses Microsoft products and yhis just clears the way for amazon who doesn't care and will get all the cash
Where are you getting all this bad information from? Are your facebook friends all retards? A yet you believe them.
We can go about our business. Move along.
will they have to go with alibaba cloud?
of course, amazon probably won't drop out, and certainly ibm has no morals anymore and is desperate for business so would never drop out either.
Microsoft sales windows to the Department of Defense! You are too late
Take all the actual draft dodgers before the innocent.
Is the (REAL!) claim here:
US military is bad?
Or, US government (which orders US military) is bad?
Or, US public (which elected US government) is bad?
Because, otherwise, their own employees trying to prevent any US company from doing business for US military/government is seems like, at least to me, exact opposite of patriotism!
If US military cannot constantly improve itself w/ latest & greatest tech, who would win, and who would lose, really?
Are those US company employees really want US military to fall behind of other country militaries, or not?
Also, IMHO, employees of ANY company trying to tell their company management, who they can do business with or not, what kind of business they can do or not, is really not acceptable!
Imagine, the company spent a lot time, labor, money for a project, and, in the last minute, employees want it to be cancelled!!!
Or, all companies should/must always tell/ask any/all future projects to their employees first?
(That would really help to the competing companies (& countries!); always learning about future projects of their competition early!)
IMHO, what really going on (recently) is, US IT workers allowing themselves to be used by armchair expert SJWs, nothing else!!!
If soldiers are going to fight I want them to have the most accurate rifles. The decision on whether they fight is politicial. Making innacurate guns or creating an army that can't win a battle without a loss of life is a stupid way to hamstring the political descion to go to war.
Then the US gov and mil is free to support much better US brands that fully support the USA.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It may very well be the case that "hundreds of employees within Microsoft have voiced ethical concerns", but when Microsoft has much greater than 100000, those few hundred squeaky wheels are nothing more than a rounding error.
If you dislike what DHS or DoD is doing, tell your congresscritter, but don't expect your workplace to advocate in a direction that will reduce shareholder profits. Personally, I'm in favor of projects that put fewer of our men and women in harm's way. Smarter munitions will also result in less collateral damage overall.
I'm sure the makers of Hammers and Cloth didn't think their products would be used by Terrorists and shyt. but hey, yeah, you take that moral high ground when it comes to a tool.
Well.. if we had a time machine and went applied this logic to retrospectively undevelop all the technology that exists today that was originally created for the military we would missing a lot of really important stuff e.g...
* Computers
* The Internet
* GPS
* Duct tape
* Drones
* Radar
* Microwave ovens
etc etc
Perhaps MS could stop selling violent games as well? Time to kill off Halo, Call of Duty, or whatever violence-desensitising hi-res bullet-through-the-eyeball assassin game is coming out next?
I'm guessing you'll later define that relationship in terms that attempt to minimize the US empire (such as not pointing out that the US spends so more more than other world powers do on their militaries, and the US loses track of trillions of dollars which would have been better spent on social services that reflect majoritarian values including Medicare for All, a national jobs program, and potable water for all). The US is what Martin Luther King referred to it as, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". So many of the threats Americans face are reactions to American state belligerence. It's worth asking, as Glenn Greenwald did, why the people of Brazil, Chile, and other large and monied countries don't face these retaliatory attacks as Americans do. He points to a 2004 report commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld on terrorism (suggesting listeners look up those keywords online to find the report) and says you'll find that Rumsfeld was told the attackers hate America for its policies, not "hating us for our freedoms" or "hate us because we're involved in a religious war because they have this religion that hypnotizes them into committing violence" (quotes from Greenwald). Chomsky points out that this report was a repeat of a National Security Council document from 1958 commissioned by President Eisenhower when Eisenhower asked "why is there a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world, not from the governments but from the populations?" (quoting Chomsky). Chomsky summarizes the telling answer:
We all should work for peace now, not wait for undefined others to do the heavy lifting as the thread-starting poster wrote. That overvalued post is indistinguishable from excusing empire-building, predator strikes (extrajudicial assassinations as the US does in its drone war), and endless military spending while Americans go without and die.
Digital Citizen
From my perspective, the JEDI are evil!
So with Google out for JEDI, if Azure follows suit, then that really leaves IBM as the last obstacle to Amazon. Note DoD wants AWS, and only AWS, as well, so having contract protests qualched from within competitor companies is a net win for Amazon as well.
This "open letter" was published using a throwaway Medium account called "@EmployeesOfMicrosoft." There is zero evidence that any actual Microsoft employees were involved. You don't write an open petition to your CEO, and then forget to include the list of names! Employees at companies like Microsoft and Google regularly question their company's direction without fear of repercussions, or need for anonymity.
Any random troll could have produced this "open letter," and there are reasonable motives why they might do that.
So if it weren't Trump,they'd be all for it?
I want my country's military to "walk softly, and carry a big stick". In fact, I want them to have the "biggest" stick of all countries. But, I also want them to only swing it when necessary. We shouldn't allow despots and tyrants in other countries to intimate (looking at you Assad). We can't allow other countries to block trade routes (looking at you and your phony islands China). And we shouldn't have allowed Russia to take over Crimea, but we didn't have sufficient leverage to prevent it w/o an much bigger war. It's the "walk softly" part that frequently gets overlooked, often by the military. It's their job to be lethal, and in fact many of us can't handle that truth. But, it's also their job to avoid as much collateral damage as feasible.
If you don't want to support the military, I get it. But don't try to prevent them from having the best tools possible, which is part of what this kind of letter is attempting to do...not that MS has those (just my $.02).
Just another day in Paradise
of obi one, saying WUS says we need to reboot due to security updates again, (with slumped over face)
But I think they fail to realize that increasing the lethality of the US Military does not automatically equate to people dying somewhere...
Not to mention the incredibly naive notion that lethality isn't the military's mandate. As a nation you have a police force for enforcing domestic law and order, and with an emphasis(hopefully) on humane and non-lethal methods. For foreign relations, you have teams of politicians and diplomats trying to use words and treaty's, and failing that economic sanctions. When all of that is working, the military's only job is to hang out and be ready for when those things fail. When those things fail, the military's job is to deliver lethal force as efficiently and successfully as possible.
That is to say, it is the military's job to and purpose to be lethal, and good at it. Objecting to the military improving it's lethality is pretty much just objecting to the need for a military at all.
There are really bad actors in this world who would like to destroy all our rights, freedoms, and our safety, even our lives.
Jesus, straight from the mouth of warmongers.
You're right. There are some crazy people. Always have been. Always will be. But this idea that the whole world would is out to get is is hysterical bullshit. The US's defense/military dwarfs everybody else's on the planet by orders of magnitude. Nobody can invade us or hurt you. Just fucking relax and turn off Fox News. Maybe try to travel to other countries, where you'll see that 99.999% of people are just trying to get through this life, just the same as you.
We, as a country, do not need to spend any more money defending ourselves from the boogeyman.
You are arguing that Americans are safe. In fact, that they are extremely safe. Your evidence, is that the "US's defense/military dwarfs everybody else's".
So, to paraphrase, you are arguing the America is safe because it has the most lethal military on the planet...
That seems a very short hop to arguing that keeping it that way is a good thing.
People protected by arms refuse to acknowledge that arms are the reason they're able to whine about "weapons of war".
At least they will be more loyal to our country in doing so, right? And since they know how their own systems work, they can make our cyber defenses custom tailored.