A pro-Palestinian protester interrupted the keynote occasion of Microsoft’s fiftieth anniversary celebration Friday, the most recent backlash over the tech business’s work to produce synthetic intelligence know-how to the Israeli navy.
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 a girl within the viewers. “You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military.”
She claimed 50,000 folks have died and described it as a genocide.
“Thank you for your protest, I hear you,” Suleyman stated. The protester continued, shouting that he and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their fingers.
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 navy program to pick out bombing targets through 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 ladies and their grandmother.
In February, 5 Microsoft workers had been ejected from a gathering with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts. Whereas the February occasion was an inside 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 an announcement 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 could take additional motion.
