微软50名员工抗议“HoloLens 4.8亿美元军方合同”

　　这封致微软首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉和董事长布拉德·史密斯的信函最初只在内部传阅，但现在已经正式公布。相关的微软员工抗议公司为军方提供增强士兵杀伤力的技术，并认为这会将战斗转变为“模拟游戏“，从而“进一步令士兵忘却战争的残酷风险和流血现实”。需要注意的是，微软即将在西班牙当地时间周日举行的MWC展前发布会中亮相新一代的HoloLens混合现实头显。目前微软尚未对事件予以置评。

　　这只是又一次硅谷员工的“We Won’t Build It”运动。亚马逊，微软和谷歌等科技员工曾多次发起过抗议活动，反对公司提供存在人道主义问题的服务与产品。例如，谷歌员工在2018年6月曾迫使公司放弃了美国国防部的国防项目，同时在12月令其搁置为中国开发特定的搜索引擎产品Project Dragonfly。

　　这不是微软员工第一次提出对政府滥用其技术的担忧。在2018年6月，数百名员工签署了一份请愿书，要求微软放弃与美国移民和海关执法局的合同。在2018年10月，一群员工要求公司取消其为美国国防部建设云服务的100亿美元项目。然而，相关微软员工的努力尚未成功迫使微软放弃前面所述的政府合同。

　　尽管微软正在鼓励对面部识别技术进行监管和道德辩论，但实际上他们正在加倍对向美国军方和政府机构的技术支持。

　　微软董事长史密斯在10月的一篇博文中指出：“我们相信美国需要强大的国防，而且我们希望保卫我们国家的人员能够获得这个国家最佳的科技，包括来自微软的技术。”

　　除了要求取消美国军方的合同外，今天的公开请愿信同时呼吁微软“暂停开发所有的武器技术”，起草一份相应的公开声明，并建立一个外部审查委员会负责执行与监督。

　　信函同时承认，微软已经建立了一项名为Aether的人工智能道德审查程序，但他们认为这一过程“对微软员工来说不够透明，显然不足以阻止武器开发。”

　　微软员工是否能改变公司在相关事项的立场仍有待观察。下面是信函全文：

　　Dear Satya Nadella and Brad Smith,

　　We are a global coalition of Microsoft workers, and we refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression. We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the U.S. Military, helping one country’s government “increase lethality” using tools we built. We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.

　　In November, Microsoft was awarded the $479 million Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) contract with the United States Department of the Army. The contract’s stated objective is to “rapidly develop, test, and manufacture a single platform that Soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train that provides increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness necessary to achieve overmatch against our current and future adversaries.”. Microsoft intends to apply its HoloLens augmented reality technology to this purpose. While the company has previously licensed tech to the U.S. Military, it has never crossed the line into weapons development. With this contract, it does. The application of HoloLens within the IVAS system is designed to help people kill. It will be deployed on the battlefield, and works by turning warfare into a simulated “video game,” further distancing soldiers from the grim stakes of war and the reality of bloodshed.

　　Intent to harm is not an acceptable use of our technology.

　　We demand that Microsoft:

　　1) Cancel the IVAS contract;

　　2) Cease developing any and all weapons technologies, and draft a public-facing acceptable use policy clarifying this commitment;

　　3) Appoint an independent, external ethics review board with the power to enforce and publicly validate compliance with its acceptable use policy.

　　Although a review process exists for ethics in AI, AETHER, it is opaque to Microsoft workers, and clearly not robust enough to prevent weapons development, as the IVAS contract demonstrates. Without such a policy, Microsoft fails to inform its engineers on the intent of the software they are building. Such a policy would also enable workers and the public to hold Microsoft accountable.

　　Brad Smith’s suggestion that employees concerned about working on unethical projects “would be allowed to move to other work within the company” ignores the problem that workers are not properly informed of the use of their work. There are many engineers who contributed to HoloLens before this contract even existed, believing it would be used to help architects and engineers build buildings and cars, to help teach people how to perform surgery or play the piano, to push the boundaries of gaming, and to connect with the Mars Rover (RIP). These engineers have now lost their ability to make decisions about what they work on, instead finding themselves implicated as war profiteers.

　　Microsoft’s guidelines on accessibility and security go above and beyond because we care about our customers. We ask for the same approach to a policy on ethics and acceptable use of our technology. Making our products accessible to all audiences has required us to be proactive and unwavering about inclusion. If we don’t make the same commitment to be ethical, we won’t be. We must design against abuse and the potential to cause violence and harm.

　　Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to do more. But implicit in that statement, we believe it is also Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to do good. We also need to be mindful of who we’re empowering and what we’re empowering them to do. Extending this core mission to encompass warfare and disempower Microsoft employees, is disingenuous, as “every person” also means empowering us. As employees and shareholders we do not want to become war profiteers. To that end, we believe that Microsoft must stop in its activities to empower the U.S. Army’s ability to cause harm and violence.

　　Microsoft Workers