Bookmark: Public institutions are using a murderous technology
The fact that research and development institutions and companies in various fields collaborate with military and for military purposes is well established. War is certainly one of the more reliable and profitable industries and its prospects of good earnings tempt many managers of public and private institutions to join the “growth and development” wagon. We have partly touched upon this in some of the previous posts of the Initiative against Militarism.
For the rest of us in the modern world who don't want to be associated with technology of mass killing or want to oppose the system of which the latter is an integral part it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid at least an indirect support for these companies that support militarization and even play an active role in it. Our lives are increasingly intertwined and marked by technology and so is war. The seemingly innocent tool that helps us find the answers to our questions about the simplest lunch we can prepare on an ordinary day is at the same time, utilizing an immense amount of data gathered from all over, identifying its next military targets, among them also many children.
For years, armies have been hiring private companies to build so-called autonomous weapons. The current Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, in Lebanon and in Syria are now undoubtedly the leading examples of the use of so-called artificial intelligence systems. In practice this means that so-called artificial intelligence determines who lives and who dies. The Israeli military uses this system to sift through vast intelligence databases, intercept communications and surveillance to find 'suspicious speech' or behaviour and learn the movements of selected 'enemies'. For a basic insight into the state-of-the-art tool of terror, see for example the analysis ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza on +972 Magazine.
One of the tech giants that has been at the service of Israeli army is Microsoft. Its OpenAI system is used by Israel to select targets. The algorithms used have been shown to show no particular tendency to protect human life. It is a well-documented fact that Microsoft has been directly involved in numerous killings of civilians. Perhaps due to flawed algorithms, perhaps due to inaccurate input data, but it is also quite possible that the mass killing of Palestinian women and Palestinians in Gaza is in fact its real intention. Microsoft has also earned its own sub-page on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) website.
In recent months, a number of Microsoft employees have protested against the supply of artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli army. Two employees have been fired as a result of the public protest and other employees report censorship and blocking of emails containing keywords related to Palestine and Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.
An additional dimension of responsibility for facilitating the genocide of the Palestinian people was added by Microsoft in February this year. As a result of US sanctions against the International Criminal Court for launching an investigation against Israeli leaders and issuing arrest warrants, Microsoft blocked Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan's access to his emails and, as part of the same pressure campaign, his bank accounts were frozen.
So, on the one hand, Microsoft is selling artificial intelligence weapons to the Israeli army and thus contributing a significant part of the military technology to the genocide in Gaza, and furthermore it is actively censoring and blocking the communication of the few international structures that are working to stop this campaign of mass murder and destruction.
Given that Microsoft is also one of the leading providers of software and services to ordinary consumers, the question is whether its products or services are really those that we want to use for our everyday communications, knowing that in doing so we are indirectly supporting Israel's war in Gaza and genocide? It is not just a question of individual consumer choices, but also a question of public institutions and their use of technology.
Why do public institutions in Slovenia, including universities, still support corporate giants when they could easily build their own independent and more secure platforms to offer the basic communication tools that have become indispensable in the modern world. Do we really have to support genocide in return for the use of a university email?