Microsoft employees protest against Hololens military contract

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

 

Several Microsoft employees, including Hololens engineers, call on Microsoft to drop the military contract that the company won in November 2018. 

They feel cheated by the company because they signed on to develop a tool for architects, car designers, surgeons, pianists etc, but are instead being seen as war profiteers because their work will be used to more easily kill people.

 

Quote

On Friday, a group of workers at the Redmond, Washington tech giant released an open letter in which they slammed a $749 million contract the company holds to develop a "Integrated Visual Augmentation System" (IVAS) to build "a single platform that Soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train that provides increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness necessary to achieve overmatch against our current and future adversaries."

 

"We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used," the letter reads. "As employees and shareholders we do not want to become war profiteers. To that end, we believe that Microsoft must stop in its activities to empower the U.S. Army's ability to cause harm and violence."

 

 

Source 1 : Business Insider

Source 2 : BBC News

 

The entire letter is posted in the Business Insider article.  However seeing as it's an open letter, I feel that it's okay to post the letter in its entirety here.

 

Dear Satya Nadella and Brad Smith,

 

We are a global coalition of Microsoft workers, and we refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression. We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the U.S. Military, helping one country's government "increase lethality" using tools we built. We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.

In November, Microsoft was awarded the $479 million Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) contract with the United States Department of the Army. The contract's stated objective is to "rapidly develop, test, and manufacture a single platform that Soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train that provides increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness necessary to achieve overmatch against our current and future adversaries." Microsoft intends to apply its HoloLens augmented reality technology to this purpose. While the company has previously licensed tech to the U.S. Military, it has never crossed the line into weapons development. With this contract, it does. The application of HoloLens within the IVAS system is designed to help people kill. It will be deployed on the battlefield, and works by turning warfare into a simulated "video game," further distancing soldiers from the grim stakes of war and the reality of bloodshed.

Intent to harm is not an acceptable use of our technology.

We demand that Microsoft:

1) Cancel the IVAS contract;

2) Cease developing any and all weapons technologies, and draft a public-facing acceptable use policy clarifying this commitment;

3) Appoint an independent, external ethics review board with the power to enforce and publicly validate compliance with its acceptable use policy.

Although a review process exists for ethics in AI, AETHER, it is opaque to Microsoft workers, and clearly not robust enough to prevent weapons development, as the IVAS contract demonstrates. Without such a policy, Microsoft fails to inform its engineers on the intent of the software they are building. Such a policy would also enable workers and the public to hold Microsoft accountable.

Brad Smith's suggestion that employees concerned about working on unethical projects "would be allowed to move to other work within the company" ignores the problem that workers are not properly informed of the use of their work. There are many engineers who contributed to HoloLens before this contract even existed, believing it would be used to help architects and engineers build buildings and cars, to help teach people how to perform surgery or play the piano, to push the boundaries of gaming, and to connect with the Mars Rover (RIP). These engineers have now lost their ability to make decisions about what they work on, instead finding themselves implicated as war profiteers.

Microsoft's guidelines on accessibility and security go above and beyond because we care about our customers. We ask for the same approach to a policy on ethics and acceptable use of our technology. Making our products accessible to all audiences has required us to be proactive and unwavering about inclusion. If we don't make the same commitment to be ethical, we won't be. We must design against abuse and the potential to cause violence and harm.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to do more. But implicit in that statement, we believe it is also Microsoft's mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to do good. We also need to be mindful of who we're empowering and what we're empowering them to do. Extending this core mission to encompass warfare and disempower Microsoft employees, is disingenuous, as "every person" also means empowering us. As employees and shareholders we do not want to become war profiteers. To that end, we believe that Microsoft must stop in its activities to empower the U.S. Army's ability to cause harm and violence.

Microsoft Workers

 

 

The unfortunate reality is that someone WILL provide this kind of technology to the military.  That being said, I'd be pretty pissed if I were in the developers' place too. 

Imagine creating something that has the potential to improve the world, only to see it being used to kill people. 

 

This could be seen as a follow-up on the topic that @AluminiumTech created here on December 4th.

 

 

EDIT : replaced the image with something smaller.

[ki8aras]

42 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

 

 

 

Several Microsoft employees, including Hololens engineers, call on Microsoft to drop the military contract that the company won in November 2018. 

They feel cheated by the company because they signed on to develop a tool for architects, car designers, surgeons, pianists etc, but are instead being seen as war profiteers because their work will be used to more easily kill people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

The unfortunate reality is that someone WILL provide this kind of technology to the military.  That being said, I'd be pretty pissed if I were in the developers' place too. 

Imagine creating something that has the potential to improve the world, only to see it being used to kill people. 

 

This could be seen as a follow-up on the topic that @AluminiumTech created here on December 4th.

u mean like what happened with nuclear energy?

[Guest]

Imagine the telemetry and user information they'd get from this. 

[Doobeedoo]

Sadly any tech that can be leveraged for military they'll make sure to get their hands on. 

[MyName13]

Imagine being in a position to say no to your employer, work in one of the largest companies with very good working conditions and still receive a large salary....

[kuddlesworth9419]

I wouldn't want something I have created to be used to kill or help kill other people. 

[fargonaz]

boo hoo.

[RejZoR]

Were these people just born into this world? Of course every application of any tech starts with military application. I can't believe people this smart are so clueless. Thinking if Microsoft doesn't do the job, no one will. Clueless and ignorant again. Someone WILL make this anyway, it just might not be Microsoft. That's just the reality of it.

 

Everyone pissing on nuclear bombs. But they have only been used twice on actual targets. While there were fatalities, there were far less than there would be if traditional warfare continued between Japan and USA. And it ended that war for good. Since then, nuclear technology has been powering our cities for decades, it's helping us expoloring deep space and so on. Also, who says HoloLens will just make killing people easier? Game style tagging of friends and foes via green or red highlight might save innocent lives. Thinking we'll stop war is just foolish, but if it makes it safer for civilians, isn't this a win as well?

[Billy Pilgrim]

This reminds me of a saying I heard a while ago. It goes something like:

"Science gives us the keys to heaven and hell. It is up to us to decide which set we use"

[Taf the Ghost]

Any time this comes up: these engineers already signed up with a company that has massive military & government contracts, so you already know what you got yourself involved in. Boo hoo.

[Kherm]

This contract has as many as 100,000 HoloLens Devices involved. Microsoft would never pull out of this agreement. 

 

Also, less than 1% of Microsoft's workforce has signed this letter

[thevicparable]

2 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Any time this comes up: these engineers already signed up with a company that has massive military & government contracts, so you already know what you got yourself involved in. Boo hoo.

 

I’m about as anti-war as you can get but you’re spot on. 

[SansVarnic]

5 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

but are instead being seen as war profiteers because their work will be used to more easily kill people

I can understand the sentiment but they are wrong.

[alicskysareblue]

You know Im kind of tired of people in  this forum playing arm chair expert. They probably have real issues that cant be disclosed do to ndas.

 

these are technical engineers  most of who have been workin for microsoft for years. And should cetainly have a say in how there r&d os used

[straight_stewie]

7 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

but are instead being seen as war profiteers because their work will be used to more easily kill people. 

That's the wrong way to look at augmented reality in the battlefield.

War will happen no matter what level of technology is available to a society. It's just inevitable at the current stage of human evolution. But, do a thought experiment: Think about the current level of technology, and then think about how that might be applied to augmented reality in the battlefield.

Basically, the only currently reachable application is to improve general situational awareness by displaying information that the soldiers already know, but are just keeping in their heads. These are things like: the location of friendly forces, the location of enemy forces, weather, terrain, maps, and so on. Virtually all of those things are mostly useful for preventing friendly fire, or keeping units on track and on time.

Or in other words: When you make a technology that makes your armed forces better, you are also helping to save the lives of the members of your armed forces. Withholding technology will not prevent war, or any deaths due to war. Of course, that only applies to non WMDs. WMDs are a very different ball field.

[Delicieuxz]

Related:  Microsoft vows to hand over all its technologies to ‘ethical & honorable’ US military

[Teddy07]

How shall I ever find work when I absolutely hate these liberals?

[Brooksie359]

59 minutes ago, elderago said:

You know Im kind of tired of people in  this forum playing arm chair expert. They probably have real issues that cant be disclosed do to ndas.

 

these are technical engineers  most of who have been workin for microsoft for years. And should cetainly have a say in how there r&d os used

That's not how the world works. If you are working for a company and develope technology using that companies resources while being paid by said company then the company owns the technology and not you. You have 0 say in how it is used but you do have a say in if you want to continue working their or not. If they don't like it then they can simply quit and Microsoft will simply replace them. Having funding for research and development is important so I am pretty sure Microsoft wont be giving up on this contract over some employees disapproval. 

[Brooksie359]

55 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

That's the wrong way to look at augmented reality in the battlefield.

War will happen no matter what level of technology is available to a society. It's just inevitable at the current stage of human evolution. But, do a thought experiment: Think about the current level of technology, and then think about how that might be applied to augmented reality in the battlefield.

Basically, the only currently reachable application is to improve general situational awareness by displaying information that the soldiers already know, but are just keeping in their heads. These are things like: the location of friendly forces, the location of enemy forces, weather, terrain, maps, and so on. Virtually all of those things are mostly useful for preventing friendly fire, or keeping units on track and on time.

Or in other words: When you make a technology that makes your armed forces better, you are also helping to save the lives of the members of your armed forces. Withholding technology will not prevent war, or any deaths due to war. Of course, that only applies to non WMDs. WMDs are a very different ball field.

That's was actually my first thought when I read this. I would be happy if I had the opportunity to develop a technology that could help my countries troops and prevent them from dying on the battlefield. I have many family members and friends who are in the military and would definitely like them to be better equipped. As the us military has advanced the amount of soldiers deaths has decreased so I am all for anything that would decrease that number. 

[vanished]

They had to know that it was going to be amazing for this... like, I'm not the only one who saw this coming right?

[CarlBar]

9 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

That's not how the world works. If you are working for a company and develope technology using that companies resources while being paid by said company then the company owns the technology and not you. You have 0 say in how it is used but you do have a say in if you want to continue working their or not. If they don't like it then they can simply quit and Microsoft will simply replace them. Having funding for research and development is important so I am pretty sure Microsoft wont be giving up on this contract over some employees disapproval. 

 

Except they never had the opportunity to quit, because MS announced the military stuff after they'd been working on it.

 

Their position isn't hard to follow. They agreed to work on the project, (instead of quit or go to another MS project), because they believed it was going to be used for purposes they had no objection to. They do have objections to working on something thats going to be used for military purposes however. By signing the contract MS has effectively changed the use case for somthing they developed to do somthing they would not have agreed to work on had they been aware of it.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with them having an objection to working on military projects.

 

On the other hand i don't think MS was being deliberately deceptive about this.

 

I think both sides have a point here and MS should take it on as a lesson in considering these things better in the future.

 

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

They had to know that it was going to be amazing for this... like, I'm not the only one who saw this coming right?

 

Given the reactions when the contract was announced. Yes. Honestly i'm surprised it's being considered anywhere near adequately developed for military usage.

[Stefan Payne]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

They had to know that it was going to be amazing for this... like, I'm not the only one who saw this coming right?

Attention, Captain Obvious is coming!!111

 

 

Well, yeah, no. 

Most people don't like to do stuff that might be used to kill other people.

 

[vanished]

1 minute ago, CarlBar said:

Given the reactions when the contract was announced. Yes. Honestly i'm surprised it's being considered anywhere near adequately developed for military usage.

Well whether it's ready today or in a few years the point remains that eventually the military was going to want this tech.   To be honest I'm surprised they didn't help fund it from the start.

Just now, Stefan Payne said:

Attention, Captain Obvious is coming!!111

 

 

Well, yeah, no. 

Most people don't like to do stuff that might be used to kill other people.

Sure, which is why I'm wondering why they're only complaining now.  They had to know this was coming and if they didn't want to be a part of that, why work on it?

[Stefan Payne]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Sure, which is why I'm wondering why they're only complaining now.  They had to know this was coming and if they didn't want to be a part of that, why work on it?

Why are people protesting about the bridge that's going to be build here right now and not 20 Years ago?
Its talked about 20 Years but nobody cared.

Contracts were about to be signed - suddenly everybody cared.

 

Same here probably.
Everybody might have heard about that at Microsoft but nobody really cared. Until the press release then the usual outrage types said something about that...

 

Though some might actually be pacifist....

[Brooksie359]

3 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Except they never had the opportunity to quit, because MS announced the military stuff after they'd been working on it.

 

Their position isn't hard to follow. They agreed to work on the project, (instead of quit or go to another MS project), because they believed it was going to be used for purposes they had no objection to. They do have objections to working on something thats going to be used for military purposes however. By signing the contract MS has effectively changed the use case for somthing they developed to do somthing they would not have agreed to work on had they been aware of it.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with them having an objection to working on military projects.

 

On the other hand i don't think MS was being deliberately deceptive about this.

 

I think both sides have a point here and MS should take it on as a lesson in considering these things better in the future.

 

 

Given the reactions when the contract was announced. Yes. Honestly i'm surprised it's being considered anywhere near adequately developed for military usage.

When you develop a technology for a company you should be fully aware that everything you do is the companies property and can be used how they see fit. That the reality of working in the research and development industry for a certain company. If you want to have a say in how a technology is used then develop it yourself with your own money. I'm sorry but these people are super naive seeing as Microsoft has had a good relationship with the us military for a long time. They were kidding themselves if they thought that this type if technology wouldn't get into the hand of the military.