A professional-Palestinian protest by Microsoft staff interrupted the corporate’s fiftieth anniversary celebration Friday, the most recent backlash over the tech business’s work to produce synthetic intelligence know-how to the Israeli army.
The protest occurred as Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was presenting product updates and a long-term imaginative and prescient for the corporate’s AI assistant product, Copilot, to an viewers that included Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.
“Mustafa, shame on you,” shouted Microsoft worker Ibtihal Aboussad as she walked towards the stage and Suleyman paused his speech. “You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”
“Thank you for your protest, I hear you,” Suleyman stated. Aboussad continued, shouting that he and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their fingers. She additionally threw onto the stage a keffiyeh scarf, which has change into an emblem of help for Palestinian individuals, earlier than being escorted out of the occasion.
A second protester, Microsoft worker Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted one other a part of the celebration throughout which Gates, Ballmer and present CEO Satya Nadella have been on stage — the primary public gathering since 2014 of the three males who’ve been Microsoft’s CEO.
An investigation by The Related Press revealed earlier this yr that AI fashions from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as a part of an Israeli army program to pick out bombing targets in the course of the current wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The story additionally contained particulars of an errant Israeli airstrike in 2023 that struck a automobile carrying members of a Lebanese household, killing three younger women and their grandmother.
In February, 5 Microsoft staff have been ejected from a gathering with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts. Whereas the February occasion was an inner assembly, Friday’s protest was way more public — a livestreamed showcase of the corporate’s previous and future.
“We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard,” stated a press release from the corporate Friday. “Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards.”
Microsoft declined to say whether or not it will take additional motion.
