Microsoft employees opposed the use of HoloLens in the army, because war turns into a computer game

At least 50 Microsoft employees signed an open letter to Executive Director Satya Nadella and General Counsel Brad Smith with a demand to abandon the military contract with the US Army: "We are a global coalition of Microsoft employees and refuse to create technologies for war and oppression," begins document .

This is a contract for an “integrated visual augmentation system” (Integrated Visual Augmentation System) in the amount of $ 479 million, which Microsoft concluded in November 2018 . As noted in the letter, the company intends to “quickly develop, test and manufacture a single platform that soldiers can use in combat, training and training, which provides increased mortality, mobility and situational awareness” against the enemies of America.


To fulfill the terms of the contract, Microsoft provides the US Army with its HoloLens augmented reality platform. Protesters believe that this is "crossing the line" in the development of weapons.
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“The use of HoloLens in the IVAS system should help train people to kill,” the letter says. “It will be deployed on the battlefield and is working, turning the war into a simulated video game, further alienating the soldiers from the dark consequences of the war and the reality of bloodshed.”

Employees disagree with Microsoft’s military commitment to the US Army. However, they raise an even bigger problem within the corporation: the firm does not listen to the opinion of its employees. People who do not want to do military work simply offer the opportunity to do something else within the company, that is, to move to another project.

This does not solve anything, the letter says. Employee shuffling “ignores the problem that employees are not properly informed about the use of their work. There are many engineers who contributed to HoloLens before this contract even existed, believing that it would be used to help architects and engineers build buildings and cars to help teach people how to perform operations or play the piano to push the boundaries. games and connect with the rover (RIP) ".

Employees formulated in the letter three requirements:

1. Cancel the IVAS contract.
   
2. Stop the development of any weapon technology and develop a public policy of acceptable use explaining this commitment.
   
3. To appoint an independent external ethics board authorized to ensure and publicly confirm compliance with the policy of acceptable use.

World media reported the existence of this letter on Friday February 22, 2019. Therefore, there is a high probability that on this wave in the coming days, a lot more people will sign the letter. Each of 130,000 Microsoft employees can sign it , if authorized by the aka.ms/hololens4good link.

A Microsoft spokesman told the BBC: “We always appreciate feedback from employees and we have many opportunities for the voices of employees to be heard.”

The pacifist protest of Microsoft employees reminds a similar action of Google employees , which ended in success. In this case, the programmers also reasonably noticed that they did not develop the appropriate technologies for the army and it was unpleasant for them to hear that the employer decided to earn money from their work in such an inhuman way.

In March 2017, Google entered into a contract with the US Department of Defense. As part of the Maven project, by the end of 2017, it was planned to “introduce advanced computer algorithms into government platforms for recognizing objects on a large number of moving or still images”. In fact, this is a machine vision system for military UAVs. Maven is described as “a customizable AI engine that uses Wide Area Motion Imagery data collected by US government unmanned aerial vehicles to detect vehicles and other objects, track their movements and transmit the recognition results to the Department of Defense.”

Several thousand Google employees signed an open letter against the use of their developments for military purposes. There was a noise in the press. As a result, the company had to abandon the lucrative contract, which will now go to another contractor.