Kamal Ghorui
A number of letters said to be representing employees of technology companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI are circulating. These letters call upon leaders of these and some other technology companies for clearer limits on how their companies work with the US army. One of the earliest such letters is from the group ‘No Tech For Apartheid’. It is the same group that is linked with public protests at Google and Microsoft offices a number of times in the past few years. In the letter sent in the wake of Anthropic’s tensions with the Department of Defense, the open letter asks these companies to reject Pentagon’s demands. “We are speaking out today because the Pentagon is demanding that Anthropic abandon two major safety guardrails for Claude, which is the only frontier AI model currently deployed in classified Department of War operations,” says the letter that calls Pentagon’s demands as ‘intimidation’. It goes on to add, “Executive leadership at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon must reject the Pentagon’s advances and provide workers with transparency about contracts with other repressive state agencies including DHS, CBP, and ICE.”
Here’s the letter, titled, ‘Worker Organizations And Unions Representing 700,000 Employees Demand: Amazon, Google, Microsoft Must Reject The Pentagon’s Demands’
On Friday, No Tech For Apartheid, a group that’s long been critical of cloud deals between the U.S. government and tech giants, posted a joint statement titled, “Amazon, Google, Microsoft Must Reject the Pentagon’s Demands.”We represent groups of workers from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Our organizations typically focus on a range of issues, from better workplace protections to the pursuit of environmental justice and the demilitarization of our technology.This is our first statement together.We are speaking out today because the Pentagon is demanding that Anthropic abandon two major safety guardrails for Claude, which is the only frontier AI model currently deployed in classified Department of War operations. This intimidation is an ultimatum: AI companies can either agree to the Pentagon’s terms, or be designated a “supply chain risk,” or forced to provide the technology through the Defense Production Act.Those guardrails, which the Pentagon originally agreed to in its contract with Anthropic, are 1) no mass domestic surveillance, and 2) no fully autonomous agents, which means no AI-powered weaponry that can kill people without human oversight.The Pentagon set a “deadline” for Anthropic to submit to its demands by Friday. As of Thursday afternoon, Anthropic issued a statement saying it will reject the Pentagon’s demands and uphold these guardrails. How the Pentagon reacts remains to be seen, but we know they will rapidly seek to onboard other models without these guardrails in place, regardless of whether they try to force Anthropic to comply.We are writing to urge our own companies to also refuse to comply should they or the frontier labs they invest in enter into further contracts with the Pentagon.If any tech company caves to the Pentagon’s demands, War Secretary Pete Hegseth will have won the ability to surveil our communities — –here and abroad — –en masse, at an unprecedented level. He will have the power to build and deploy A.I.-powered drones that kill people without the approval of any human. Our employers are already complicit in providing their technologies to power mass atrocities and war crimes; capitulating to the Pentagon’s intimidation will only further implicate our labor in violence and repression.It is not a given that our companies will do the right thing. xAI just signed a contract with the Pentagon to deploy Grok in classified environments — as far as we know, without any guardrails. Our own companies are also on the brink of accepting similar contract terms. Google is in negotiations with the Pentagon to deploy Gemini, its own frontier model, for classified uses. Gemini is already being deployed by the War Department through “GenAI.mil.” Amazon and Microsoft are heavily invested in Anthropic and OpenAI, while OpenAI is also in negotiations with the Department of War. All three companies already host government data through Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).We need Congress to pass federal regulation that prohibits the irresponsible and unconstitutional use of AI for violence and mass surveillance. In the absence of federal oversight, we are taking matters into our own hands. As workers who make these companies run, here are our demands:Executive leadership at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon must reject the Pentagon’s advances and provide workers with transparency about contracts with other repressive state agencies including DHS, CBP, and ICE.We invite workers to join us in organizing to ensure our leadership does not use our labor for mass surveillance, weaponry, and war.Signed,
