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

  • MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Thank you, Lemmy. I can’t find this on the technology subreddit. Reddit Is complacent.

    attempted to post the link on technology subreddit. It said that it has been posted too many times. I went and sorted by new, and it’s not visible.

    Not too many years ago this would have been at the very top of the technology subreddit.

    suspect for sure

    • ugtug@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      Most Reddit subs block comments or ban you outright if you mention Palestine or Israel. Reddit has taken censorship too far.

      • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Speaking about using AI for genocide is “too political”. Please keep the posts limited to Donald Trump golfing and tech leaders donating to Trump. And the US government using AI to track people (unless it is anti genocide protesters, that is political).

  • 7112@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Brave as fuck. It’s a call for all of us to do a little more. What’s happening in our world shouldn’t be the norm anymore.

  • Antonbl@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    This is such a bold move. Takes courage to speak up from the inside, especially at an event like that. Whether people agree or not, the conversation about the ethics of AI and its real-world consequences needs to happen.

    • burak@lemmy.ml
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      21 days ago

      It’s crazy how democracy is now implicitly democracy incorporated™ where individuals are silenced for expressing opinions about corporations. Vital institutions for a functioning democracy like media is now owned by big corporations, worse yet, in an increasingly monopolized way, blurring the lines between unelected corporations and elected government (who are also bought by corporations after or before they are elected)

        • burak@lemmy.ml
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          21 days ago

          I fear that we have little time before they become self-sufficient enough on an island like Zuck and don’t need us bickering at each other or outputing wealth for them. Back to the cavemen times where the guys on top control the masses through brute force. This time AI-powered brute force. With advancements in robotics and multimodal AI, what stops Zuck or Musk from training their own army of robots (both humanoid and otherwise) and instruct them to detain or destroy people? They have the means and the data.

          • RedPostItNote@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            Lmao. These are crazy billionaire pipe dreams.

            Humans survive through community. Their wealth doesn’t mean shit.

            • burak@lemmy.ml
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              20 days ago

              “Humans survive through community”: I agree with this but this is not an eternal truth. What that community looks like and consists of have always changed. Community has meant a group of people we hunted together in a jungle, our neighbors, and now more and more people you hang out online, a mixture of these or other groups etc. I can’t see any reason why a community can’t be a group of artificially intelligent robots in the near future. “Their wealth doesn’t mean shit”: This is a take that is idealistic at best and juvenile at worst. It also reads like an oxymoron. “Wealth” “doesn’t mean shit”. Wealth means everything in many of the world’s societies, western ones especially so.

              • RedPostItNote@lemmy.world
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                20 days ago

                They will be killed by their own AI for being oppressive, wasteful and illogical far faster than humans have turned on them.

          • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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            21 days ago

            IMO since they can’t even seem to wipe their own asses without us the rich will never be self sufficient or self sustaining on their own.

            • burak@lemmy.ml
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              21 days ago

              Imagine: an AI-powered ass wiper for the rich but it goes ballistic in the middle of it all and starts smearing shit all over the rich boomer who thought an AI-powered ass wiper was a good idea.

              Jokes aside, I want to note there are many of the rich we don’t see clowning in the media like Müsk.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      Goes to prove that LinkedIn is just exactly like every other social media platform despite what many people seem to believe.

      • Bazoogle@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        Of course they’re not sure. This is an internet forum. The account being gone must mean it was deleted. Honestly, she was probably getting so much bat shit crazy messages, she deleted it herself. That makes the most sense.

        3rd citation is a reference to Micro

  • merdaverse@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    It takes massive courage to give up a cozy job at Microsoft and potentially damage your entire career to stand up for your values this way. Props to her!

  • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Reading some comments here, I want to leave a gentle reminder to my fellow redditfugees: the block user option is your friend. Curate your feed or get fed.

    When you see an aggressively oppositional account dropping shittastic hot takes, of course you can always engage and Have The Conversation if you want. You know what happens after you reply: the person likely leaves a bot to mess with your good intentions, raise your blood pressure, make you depressed and waste your time. Or maybe you successfully Prove Them Wrong and they change the goalposts, or wander off to needle someone else.

    We know by now, the more we engage, the more online space they get to fill with accelerationist Content.

    So just click the account name, then click the block button, and you’ll never see their viral brainrot again. Nobody needs to know; no need to announce it. If your freezepeach philosophy prevents that, maybe just upvote one of the replies you agree with and move on. If you’re on mobile, you can tag the account through Voyager etc instead of blocking, if you prefer.

    However you manage it, removing doomscroller ragebait from your Feed is worth doing.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Microsoft will sell US citizens out in a second when the government tells them to. They will use their AI to round us up without batting an eye. They can not be trusted anymore.

    Microsoft is now a threat to democracy and human existence. They are already working against us with governments. This is the tipping point that no one will hear about.

    There is too much at stake and they are too big to fail. The government will viciously take down anyone spreading the truth. Continuing to support Microsoft is now a death sentence to democracy.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      What…are you’d confused about, specifically? It’s pretty thoroughly explained.

  • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    This is what happens when you read and watch hamas’ war propaganda online.

    There are photos and videos of russian soldiers dying. Does that give ukraine the fault for this war?

    • cocomutative_diagram@infosec.pub
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      21 days ago

      Children are not soilders. I don’t think anyone is criticising israel for killing hamas leader or soilders, especially given that hamas is a terrist organization, and Isreal is provoked; but bombing hospital, killing children, journalists, and destroying UN shelters are not okay.

      Whether terrorist attack justify a full scale invasion might be debatable, but sabotaging humanitarian effort, killing children and non-combative unit is not.

        • cocomutative_diagram@infosec.pub
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          21 days ago

          Yes, and journalist soilders, UN shelter soilders, and the humanitarian aid workers from World Central Kitchen from U.S., U.K., and Australia, believe it or not, also hamas soldiers.

          • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
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            21 days ago

            The UN palestine workers (or at least some) were proven to be associated to hamas.

            For the rest I need sources.

            • Nosavingthrow@lemmy.world
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              20 days ago

              ‘Source for thee, but none for me’ is an interesting rhetorical strategy. Let’s see how it works out.

              • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
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                19 days ago

                Just google that shit bruv

                The UN even admitted to it and kicked out some of their workers

                • Nosavingthrow@lemmy.world
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                  19 days ago

                  What the fuck are you on about? I’m commenting on your demand for sources while also providing none for numerous claims. Interesting strategy. You must have studied Plato.