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Elon Musk is responsible for “killing the world’s poorest children,” says Bill Gates
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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Saytalla seeking advice doesn't mean Gates is making the business decisions.
And claiming Microsoft cloud services are worse than RTX's actual bombs that kill children is a stretch.
They all kill children and I boycott them all. You're the only one running defense by minimizing Microsoft's role here.
Claiming Gates isn't heavily involved and influential in the business decisions is just straight up untrue, stop whitewashing his contributions to genocide.
You know what actually supports Israel? Food imports. You should be boycotting American, Swiss, German and Dutch farm produce. Cut off their food and they can't bomb.
Any company with an office in Israel? You boycott every large business? EVERY ONE? Apple, AMD, Intel, ARM? They are all in Israel. How are you even replying to this post without uses the CPU's that you claim to boycott?
AI isn't killing children. Israeli leaders are killing children. OpenAI is super charged spell checker. Have you even used it? It fixes the grammar. It helps write software. But so did autocomplete before LLM's.
Are you an executive at Microsoft? Because if you aren't YOU DON'T KNOW THAT.
https://www.techspot.com/news/107724-sources-detail-growing-rift-between-sam-altman-satya.html
Directly partnering with and providing services/technology/AI to a state's military, that is in the act of war, is facilitating that war.
Using AI to target strikes/etc., is absolutely AI making the decision to kill. They just chose to let AI do it for them.
They all "directly partner" AMD, Intel, and Arm are all deep in Israeli military.
Image recognition was around decades before LLM's became the new "AI". Those weapons only function because of the Arm, AMD and Intel CPUs components What hardware is Microsoft cloud running on?
You said you boycott all of them. How are you posting a reply?
I am not the same commenter.
Providing goods on the free market is not the same thing as directly partnering. Please enlighten me, does Intel, AMD, and ARM specifically and directly sell/provide their specialized components through another mechanism than the free market to that state/military?
What hardware or software Microsoft chooses to power their infrastructure is their choice. Could the companies that provide this hardware boycott Microsoft? I don't know how effective that would be because you can't choose who buys your products on the free market - you, however, can choose who you directly sell to or contract with.
And I don't care how smart AI and specifically LLMs are. The hardware is irrelevant. AI is still determining the targets (and potentially even firing the shots). This technology and the companies who provide this specialized technology are, at minimum, participating in the slaughter. The AI is proprietary and closed-source, these companies are willingly providing access and working with their military to specialize it for war.
I don't see how the Israeli military purchasing Microsoft Office compared to purchasing AMD CPU's s different. They chose Microsoft for the services on an open market just like they chose Arm CPU's. And yes Arm engineers do "deep integration" with military contractors just like Microsoft provides services.
"The documents reveal that dozens of units in the Israeli army have purchased services from Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, in recent months " https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-azure-openai-israeli-army-cloud/
Azure is used for running Microsoft Office or whatever other PC software they use.
Can I get a copy of Microsoft's AI on the free market? Can I get direct support for killing children and women with a company's proprietary AI on the free market?
Your arguments have fallen flat, but I'm here to be enlightened. You know so much that you're defending these companies and diluting their involvement, so clearly I must be misunderstanding something here or my knowledge isn't sufficient.
Convince me harder that Microsoft's direct involvement is actually not so bad, and these dastardly companies that indirectly provide hardware are somehow just as responsible for AI killing innocents. If these hardware manufacturers have specific contracts or involvement with that state or its military, I'd like to know.
Microsoft Office also doesn't especially facilitate the killing of innocents. And they could easily use other software, the functionality isn't unique or specialized like AI.
Just to be clear, the whole world is indeed responsible for what happens here. The free market doesn't absolve everyone of their shared responsibility. You could pull your entire head of hair out boycotting or screaming at every individual or group that provides support to one thing or the other, direct or otherwise.
My goal is to just point out the truth and also help people see it clearly. Microsoft et. al are a symptom of a larger dysfunction in society. People are so disconnected and propagandized that they don't even know truth from fiction, and the people that do understand the truth (to some degree) sit there and downplay modern atrocities as "the best we can do" and point fingers wildly at individuals who the media wants us to pay attention to instead of addressing the root causes.
AI should not be used for military purposes. That's my point.
And I'd like to apologize in advance if I misunderstood or misrepresented your points.
The article said, "access to OpenAI". They didn't even claim they are using OpenAI.
And yes, you get Microsoft's AI called CoPilot when you buy Microsoft Office. OMG, Israel's elite strike team has access to Clippy!
I'm not trying to dilute their involvement. It's like IBM during the Holocaust. Are you similarly angry at Linus for not stopping Israel from using Linux? There are many distros and many are used in Israel.
Calling out "Microsoft AI is killing Palestinians" when the only evidence is Israel bought MS Office is beyond ridiculous. Meanwhile the US and Europe sells Israel food which if stopped would stop the Gaza attacks immediately.
There are companies selling bullets and you are angry with what cologne the killers purchased.
If engineers/developers directly involved with Microsoft have called out Microsoft, and they were quickly silenced and fired, I'm more inclined to believe them versus a supposed lack of evidence.
Older reporting: https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-azure-openai-israeli-army-cloud/
AI is a commodity that's being developed by the few. They are shaping it to do things that are not for human benefit, like war and surveillance. It's the truth. They are responsible for their choices and actions, they are consciously making this technology.
If you read the bottom part of my response, you'd hear that I'm just calling out the bullshit you're peddling. You don't really care, you're focused on purity testing impassioned individuals who feel strongly about these subjects.
Microsoft is making the decision to directly sell their AI to that state and its military. It doesn't change the fact that every being on earth shares responsibility as well. But I don't have a direct ability to stop Microsoft from choosing to sell their proprietary technologies to support a country in surveilling, targeting, and killing innocents.
I will do everything in my power to voice my opinion and convince others that AI shouldn't be used for war. I don't want to live in that world and I'm sure many others don't as well.
As for Linus, his stances about the use of his technology in war is pretty clear. He doesn't like it, but he can't stop it. His software is open-source. There's a big difference between open-source software you give to all for free (for the benefit of all of humanity) and proprietary software that you provide only with payment.
Thanks, the fact that he completely ignored the bolded text in my initial comment was a dead giveaway they don't actually give a shit about the morality of the situation.
The boycott list exists for a reason, as explained in detail on the BDS website. I abide by it as much as possible, amd is not on the list while Nvidia and Intel are. Since I had to get a Google phone for grapheneos, second hand one at least prevented me from handing money to Google.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but that doesn't mean people can't utilize the BDS movement to inform them on how to avoid the companies that contribute the most to Israel's genocidal apartheid state.
I hear you. I just wonder, will it be worth it in the end to for them to see to it that society rots and capitalism "wins", by shutting down discourse in the limited places that it is able to exist?
I'd reason that it won't be worth it. I just wish they could see it that way too.
I do appreciate that discourse is more viable on Lemmy than the corporate alternatives, I only see that as getting more important as corporations like Meta and Google crack down on fact checking and anti-fascist discussions.
I have my criticisms of the moderation on both the .ml and .world side of things, but at least the fediverse is flexible and fluid with the different instances. A lot of topics concerning imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and socialism have nuances that are important to cut through (all) government and corporate disinformation. But even here a lot of that nuance is overlooked in the larger or team-sporty communities.
Hopefully educational discussions will continue to gain prominence on here and brigading/group-think will be frowned upon and discouraged. This kind of FOSS social media is a great opportunity to grow global solidarity and class consciousness. Which is become ever more critical as global capitalism lashes out with fascism against (at first) the most vulnerable
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