Microsoft employee disrupts 50th anniversary and calls AI boss ‘war profiteer’
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Summary
Ibtihal Aboussad, a Microsoft software engineer, interrupted CEO Mustafa Suleyman at the company’s 50th anniversary event to protest Microsoft’s use of AI.
Aboussad, whose speciality is AI, claimed in an email to colleagues that she had no moral choice but to protest after learning that her organisation was “powering the genocide of my people in Palestine” and selling her work to the Israeli government and military.
She accused Microsoft of suppressing protests and dissent on the issue and of being “deeply connected” to Israel’s military.
The Israeli military uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud to compile information gathered through mass surveillance, which it cross-checks with its targeting systems, according to an Israeli intelligence officer.
Aboussad urged Microsoft staffers to sign a No Azure for Apartheid petition and to speak out at every opportunity to urge senior management to drop contracts with the Israeli military.