Microsoft, Amazon pledge to work with Pentagon following anonymous online rebukes

Microsoft executives launched a spirited defense of their work with the US military on Friday in a blog post written by company president Brad Smith, who pledged to work with Pentagon as it embarks on a multibillion-dollar effort to build advanced artificial intelligence capabilities into its operations . Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos offered a similar statement last week at a conference in San Francisco hosted by Wired Magazine.

"If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble," Bezos said at the conference. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The two companies are responding to a larger wave of contention that has complicated the efforts of Silicon Valley tech companies to work with the military. Google has recently announced that it will be able to deploy its advanced algorithms to be used in weapons systems, and said it would decline to a $ 10 billion opportunity to build the Pentagon 's departmentwide cloud computing infrastructure.

That contract, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or "JEDI" for short, is designed to give the Pentagon access to new weapons capabilities that are enabled by artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle submitted bids by the Oct. 12 deadline, the spokespeople confirmed this week, and the Defense Department is expected to award a contract next year. Amazon is seen as a front-runner because of its earlier work handling data for the CIA.

[Meet the man at the center of the high-stakes, winner-take-all $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract called JEDI]

This article is only available in French. companies' relationship with the Defense Department.

The Post could not independently verify the authenticity of the two Medium posts. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company could not verify the medium post's authenticity, and an Amazon spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a post titled blog "Technology and the US Military" that was published Friday on Microsoft's website, Smith wrote that the company would continue to work with the US military while looking for ways to ensure its technology is used responsibly.

"Smith wrote," This is a new way of thinking about how to use technology, "Smith wrote. "We are not going to withdraw from the future."

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Smith's letter to a glimpse of how Microsoft is dealing with a broader tension in the tech community over the issue. In the letter, Smith wrote that he and chief executive Satya Nadella addressed the issue in a regular meeting of employees in which they promised "support talent mobility" when specific employees do not want to work on a given project.

"We understand that some of our employees may have different views," Smith wrote. "We do not ask or expect everyone who works at Microsoft. We also respect the fact that some employees work in other countries, and they may not want to work on certain projects. As is always the case, we need to work on a different project or team – for whatever reason – we want to support talent mobility. "

His letter went to great lengths to portray the US military as a force for good, noting that "millions of Americans served and fought in important and just wars," including freeing enslaved African Americans in the Civil War and liberating European nations in World War II.

"All of us who live in this country depend on its strong defense," Smith wrote. "The people who serve in our military work for an institution with a vital role and critical history. Of course, no institution is unblemished track record, and this has been true of the U.S. military. "

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The letter also notes the concerns of other tech executives who oppose the use of AI and robotics in military weaponry outright, noting "we have appreciated that no military in the world wants to wake up to discover that machines have started a war."

Smith's letter followed Oct. 12 "Open Letter to Microsoft" purportedly signed by an unspecified number of Microsoft employees. In the post, which is said to have been verified by its editorial staff, the purported employees argued against the JEDI contract because of the company.

"The contract is massive in scope and shrouded in secrecy, which makes it almost impossible to know what we would be building," the post reads. "Many Microsoft employees do not believe that we should be used for waging war."

In a different medium Amazonian law enforcement, anonymous person purporting to be an employee of the company specifically communities.

"We follow in the steps of the Googlers who spoke out against the Maven contract and Microsoft employees who are speaking out against the JEDI contract," the person wrote. "Regardless of our views on the military," he said, "the person wrote," top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page top of page "We will not silently build technology to oppress and kill people, whether in our country or in others."

Both companies are likely to avoid a broader backlash like the one at Google, in which thousands of Google employees wrote to the company's chief executive demanding that the Defense Department contract to rapidly scan drone footage. While the company did not cancel the contract, it did not renew it. And Google executes the author of the JEDI contract.