Microsoft executives remain committed to supplying tech to military - including AI

President Brad Smith explained Microsoft's controversial decision in an open letter

Microsoft executives have explained why the firm will continue to supply its technology - including artificial intelligence - to the US Department of Defense, in an attempt to silence its critics.

Employees at the company spoke out against Microsoft's move to bid on the DoD's JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) Project, challenging incumbent AWS, in an open letter this month:

‘[W]hat are Microsoft's A.I. Principles, especially regarding the violent application of powerful A.I. technology?' the letter asked. ‘How will workers, who build and maintain these services in the first place, know whether our work is being used to aid profiling, surveillance, or killing?...

‘We need to put JEDI in perspective. This is a secretive $10 billion project with the ambition of building "a more lethal" military force overseen by the Trump Administration. The Google workers who protested these collaborations and forced the company to take action saw this. We do too.'

In a new blog post, president Brad Smith acknowledged that the tech industry has been facing a debate about the extent to which it works with the government, and especially military and law enforcement agencies. He said that there are three reasons why Microsoft should continue to collaborate with the government:

"First, we believe in the strong defense of the United States and we want the people who defend it to have access to the nation's best technology, including from Microsoft.

"Second, we appreciate the important new ethical and policy issues that artificial intelligence is creating for weapons and warfare. We want to use our knowledge and voice as a corporate citizen to address these in a responsible way through the country's civic and democratic processes."

The third point is that Smith and other executives realise that employees might hold different opinions, and that is fine: "We also respect the fact that some employees work in, or may be citizens of, other countries, and they may not want to work on certain projects."

None of that, of course, is what the authors of the earlier letter wanted to hear.

Continuing, Smith said that he wanted to add "additional context" for Microsoft's employees who might be unhappy with the move.

Microsoft has already worked with the DoD for four decades, and its technology is installed throughout the US military - a relationship that the company is "proud" of.

He also touched on the JEDI Project, which involves a massive re-engineering of the DoD's end-to-end IT infrastructure: it is estimated to be worth more than $10 billion, and is controversial as a single cloud provider must win the entire thing.

Microsoft "readily decided" to pursue JEDI this summer, said Smith. He added that "no institution is perfect" but "[w]e want the people of this country and especially the people who serve this country to know that we at Microsoft have their backs."

Although he acknowledged the various ethical and policy issues surrounding the use of technology and the military, Smith argued that Microsoft had to remain involved in order to help shape the debate about how tech can be used in a responsible way.

"But when it comes to the U.S. military, as a company, Microsoft will be engaged," Smith said.