A group of “concerned Microsoft workers” have published an open letter criticising their employer’s “speed-at-all-costs” approach to generative AI, which they argue is “harming our customers, colleagues, shareholders, vendors, and the planet”. They accuse Microsoft leadership of trying to get people “addicted” to genAI, while making their own staff miserable by mandating AI usage.
Echoing the on-going BDS campaign against Microsoft’s Xbox business, the writers contend that Microsoft have become party to “human rights violations” by selling generative AI technology to Israel’s military during the latter’s invasion of Gaza, which a UN commission has deemed a genocide. They’re also critical of Microsoft’s contracts with the USA’s draconian Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. While seemingly not against generative AI in principle, they’re organising against “the AI industry’s trajectory to continue to enrich AI’s powerful few”, pointing out that AI companies now account for a terrifying share of the global stock market.
I know about the letter thanks to Vertical Slice, who cite a New York Times report on Microsoft’s recent voluntary buyouts, which follow several waves of mass layoffs at a company with a market value of around $4 trillion.
“For many, working at Microsoft has become joyless and demoralizing, with job satisfaction declining around the same time the company accelerated its AI investments,” the workers write. “Crushing workloads, threats of AI job replacement and layoffs, constantly shifting business priorities, and re-orgs destabilize our work environment and erode employee trust in leadership.”
The letter organisers complain that “workers are forced to use AI in almost every work area, with little to no training and no strategic rationale besides ‘speed’,” obliging them to spend a lot of time “learning and relearning tools, fixing AI slop, and reworking or rolling back low-quality features”. They feel that Microsoft’s generative AI strategy is exposing customers “to overreliance, misuse, and physical and mental harm”, not least because “our own research shows that AI agents don’t prioritize user safety, and internal planning documents detail how to ‘make people addicted’ to AI products.” If that last part is an actual quote from an internal feature document, then: yeeeeeeesh.
The writers further take issue with Microsoft’s investments in data centers for generative AI use, which may use up a lot of water while contributing to carbon emissions (jeopardising Microsoft’s older commitments to reducing their carbon footprint). They note that “our Community-First AI Infrastructure plan makes vague financial and job-creation commitments, but doesn’t address greenhouse gas emissions or other damage already being done.”
The organisers also call out their employer for becoming “a partner to human rights violations” by licensing generative AI tools to the Israeli military and ICE. “Not only are we risking reputational, financial, and legal damage, we are allowing our AI products to be used against whole communities for mass surveillance, detainment, deportation, and genocide,” they write.
Finally, they take a swing at “Microsoft’s participation in circular investment across a handful of AI leaders ” – that is, AI companies pouring cash into each other, which naturally creates the risk of several companies biting the dust if one company’s fortunes take a tumble. This ouroboros strategy “exposes workers, customers, shareholders, and society to a cascade of business and ethics risks,” the writers claim, noting that AI-linked stocks now dominate the S&P 500 index.
The letter writers have a number of demands. They’d like more say over “AI product strategy decisions”, and for Microsoft to consider customer feedback and bring different development disciplines together “to help guard against shipping AI-worsened user experiences”. They want Microsoft to “offer quality training and empower workers to integrate AI in their workflows without tying AI use to rewards, reprimand or layoffs.” They call on the execs to “end unfair AI-driven workforce reductions and agree to worker protections”.
Looking beyond Microsoft’s walls, the workers argue that “job opportunities from data center investments are mostly temporary” and that “Microsoft must protect all workers, not attempt to avoid the unionized trades in local communities, and ensure a just transition for all impacted workers.”
The letter writers call on Microsoft to “expand Responsible AI and Sensitive Use teams and fund programs to communicate potential harms to users”. They would like Microsoft to stop selling AI materials to organisations “if they are engaged in violence, mass surveillance, detainment, deportation, or genocide”, requesting that Microsoft “transparently share contracts with all governments and their agencies or contractors, including police and armed forces, and immediately terminate any contracts with those directly or indirectly involved in human rights violations.”
The letter writers want Microsoft to “reduce financial dependency on OpenAI and other AI partners and provide transparency into all AI investments”. In general, they want their bosses to “stop offloading financial risk to workers, vendors, partners, customers, and shareholders through irresponsible investments and relationships.” As regards the environment, the workers are demanding that Microsoft “reaffirm our goal to be carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste by 2030”. They want Microsoft to cooperate more with environmental regulators, and “to respect local communities by rejecting dirty energy, engaging fairly and transparently, and refusing to build in resource-scarce areas.”
It’s not clear who, exactly, is behind the letter, or how many others at Microsoft have signed as of writing. I’ve requested comment from Microsoft, and will update this piece as and when I hear more.
