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Microsoft employee disrupts 50th anniversary and calls AI boss ‘war profiteer’ (www.theverge.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wow, this took guts. Ibtihal Aboussad calling out Mustafa Suleyman during Microsoft’s big 50th anniversary bash shows how deep the unease runs about AI’s military applications. Her point about Microsoft’s tech being used in conflicts—especially with the Israeli military—raises legit ethical questions. It’s wild to think a celebration of innovation got hijacked by a protest over ‘genocide’ and ‘war profiteering.’ What do you all think—should employees have a say in how their work gets used, or is this just grandstanding?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

Good on them. The use of AI in military applications conveniently gets next to 0 coverage both in these type of events and also in the general news media.

Same with drone warfare. Which should terrify us all. Imagine a swarm of 30-50 drones with small explosives attacking some public event? Hell. Even jist a couple. Sadly. It will happen one day, sooner than we think.