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Microsoft workers don’t want the U.S. Army to use their products for war

Employees are protesting a contract supplying the military with HoloLens headsets

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
A Microsoft senior product marketing manager demonstrates the Microsoft HoloLens with a colleague (on screen) during the Microsoft Annual Shareholders Meeting in 2018.

A group of Microsoft workers is demanding the company cancel a contract supplying the U.S. Army with HoloLens headsets that they say would turn real-world battlefields into a video game.

Microsoft’s head-mounted HoloLens displays use augmented reality, which means viewers can see virtual imagery superimposed over the scenery in front of them.

A letter signed by more than 50 Microsoft

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employees Friday and circulated on an internal messaging board said the technology could help soldiers spot — and kill — adversaries on the battlefield.

They say they “refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression.”

“We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,” the letter says. It asks Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith to cancel a $480 million contract the Army announced in November.


Microsoft said in a statement Friday that it is committed to working with the military, including the Army under the HoloLens contract.


Microsoft pointed to an October blog post by Smith saying those who defend the U.S. should have “access to the nation’s best technology.” The company added it will continue to address “important ethical and public policy issues relating to (artificial intelligence) and the military.”

Military bidding documents say the new technology — which the Army calls its Integrated Visual Augmentation System — will be used for both training and warfighting. The Army’s stated aim is to bring more situational awareness to troops so that they become more lethal and mobile.

The protesting workers say it means HoloLens, better known for its business and entertainment applications, will be used to help kill.

The protesting workers write that “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.” The Army didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The letter also asks Microsoft to stop building any weapons technologies and appoint an independent ethics review board to determine acceptable uses of Microsoft technology.

The internal unrest over the Army contract follows a year of activism by tech workers who have become increasingly emboldened to voice their concerns about how their products are applied. A similar employee protest at Google

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last year contributed to the company dropping out of the military’s Project Maven, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze aerial images from combat zones. Microsoft workers also last year raised public concerns and circulated an open letter protesting the company’s work with U.S. immigration authorities.

Microsoft under Nadella has sought to distinguish itself as an ethically minded corporation that takes care to use its technological advances in ways that benefit society. The employee protest letter Friday acknowledged some of those efforts but said more needs to be done to inform engineers of the intent of the software they’re building.

It also comes as Nadella is expected to unveil a new generation of HoloLens headsets Sunday at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

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Jura said:

cross-posting from
F-22 Raptor Thread
about Raptors bombing poppy fields:
U.S. F-22 Stealth Jets Perform Raptor’s First Ever Air Strike In Afghanistan Employing Small Diameter Bombs
Read more at

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Jura said:

interestingly, The Marines Are Harvesting JLTV Parts from Old Humvees

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The military’s newest

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has problems with its maintenance, reliability and crew situational awareness and its most heavily armed version has been deemed “not operationally effective” in a Pentagon report.

The

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has been touted as the rugged, protected and highly mobile vehicle to replace some of the more vulnerable Humvees on a contested battlefield.

The vehicle has ballistic protection equal to the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, but is one-third lighter and 70 percent faster off road than the MRAP, officials said.

The first JLTVs were fielded to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia in mid-January.

But a number of deficiencies were noted in a recent annual report published by the

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. It provides an overview of Army, Navy and Air Force programs. The Army section contains two dozen systems with reviews and recommendations.

The vehicle comes in two- and four-seat versions with four basic configurations — general purpose, utility vehicle, heavy guns carrier and close combat weapons carrier.

The program plans to procure approximately 49,099 vehicles for the Army, 9,091 vehicles for the Marines, and 80 vehicles for the Air Force. That fielding will happen over the course of the next two decades for the Army and the next decade for the Marines.

All variants were deemed “not operationally suitable because of deficiencies in reliability, maintainability, training, manuals, crew situational awareness, and safety,” according to the report.

And the close combat weapons carrier was further deemed “not operationally effective for use in combat and tactical missions.”

That was because the close combat version “provides less capability to engage threats with the (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) missiles” over the Humvee.

“The missile reload process is slow and difficult for crews,” according to the report and the close combat version has “less storage space than other JLTV variants and accessing mission-essential equipment from the cargo area is a challenge,” according to the report.

Also, the crew has “poor visibility due to blind spots around the vehicle.”

The term “operationally effective” is used by testers to determine if the system can accomplish the mission it is intended to in as realistic an environment that can be tested.

“Operationally suitable” means whether the system can be placed in field use and be reliable and sustained within the unit and support available.

Crews had problems getting out of the JLTV and saw “numerous reliability failures of doors not opening impeded the ability of the soldiers and marines to safely ingress and egress the JLTV.”

And maintaining the vehicle is proving to be a challenge early in the fielding.

“Units cannot maintain the JLTV without support from the contractor field service representatives due to vehicle complexity, ineffective training, poor manuals, and challenges with troubleshooting the vehicle,” according to the report.

The reliability-specific problems included engine wiring problems, flat and damaged tires and brake system faults.

Overall, the JLTV will require more maintenance than the Humvee.

Also, none of the variants are operationally effective when using a towing trailer.

“The trailer has less mobility than the JLTV, which slowed the operational tempo of the test units. The Army has made no decision to procure the JLTV companion trailer,” according to the report.

Report authors recommended that the JLTV program develop a plan to address the report recommendations and further items mentioned in a classified annex.

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The US Senate has approved $655 million dedicated to the design and construction of a new heavy polar security cutter in an appropriations package last week.

Also included in the funding are $20 million to acquire long lead-time materials for a second polar security cutter, and $400 million for offshore patrol cutters and $340 million for fast response cutters, six of which will be based in Alaska.

Additionally, the bill provides $53 million for shore-side infrastructure facilities in Alaska to support the new cutters, with $22 million going to Kodiak and $31 million to Seward.

“After years of advocating for the federal government to take America’s role as an Arctic nation seriously, we have finally secured substantial resources for our country to strengthen its position in the region with a brand-new icebreaker,” US senator Dan Sullivan said welcoming the decision.

The Coast Guard’s operational polar icebreaking fleet currently includes one heavy icebreaker, USCGC Polar Star, and one medium icebreaker, USCGC Healy. A second heavy icebreaker, USCGC Polar Sea, is in inactive status.

The Coast Guard requires at least three new heavy icebreakers to ensure continued access to both polar regions and support the country’s economic, commercial, maritime and national security needs.

The US and Canadian governments on Feb. 7, 2017, established a partnership that will enable the US Coast Guard heavy polar icebreaker acquisition program to test and validate potential heavy polar icebreaker design models at Canada’s National Research Council in St John’s, Newfoundland.

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Inactive frigates, destroyers and other mothballed vessels won't be making their way back to the fleet,

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leaders have decided, as they look to add dozens of ships to the service's arsenal in the coming decades.

Navy leaders have wrapped up a review of the service's entire list of inactive ships, Vice Adm. Thomas Moore told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, and decided against resurrecting any that are already decommissioned.

Those ships are stored at the Navy's inactive ship maintenance facilities in Philadelphia; Bremerton, Washington; and

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, Hawaii.

"I was just up in Philadelphia on Friday, and we concluded that the cost of bringing them back was pretty expensive. But more importantly, the capability of the platform itself just didn't lend itself well," Moore said.

The Navy looked especially closely at bringing back frigates, Moore said. He

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last year that bringing back any old ships would be difficult since they've been used as "spare-parts lockers" in recent years.

Still, he said Tuesday, officials gave every ship another look before ultimately deciding it wasn't the best way to build up the fleet.

"It's not just about the numbers piece; it's also about having ships that can do what you need it to do," Moore said.

Bryan Clark, a retired Navy officer and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,

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that resurrecting frigates would be expensive, and they'd still be capable of carrying out only low-end missions.

"You're not getting a lot of capability; it's not going to be a ballistic missile defense shooter on patrol in the eastern Mediterranean," he told the paper.

Now, the Navy is

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that will extend the service lives of its existing fleet as it builds up to a 355-ship fleet. Doing so, Moore said, will allow the Navy to reach that size by the early 2030s.

Destroyers, for example, would remain active for at least 45 years, he said. That's five or 10 years longer than their current shelf life.

"With all the ships that we have, if you're willing to do the maintenance on them, you can keep them a little longer," he said.

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Jura said:

Monday at 7:41 AM
and
Lockheed CEO: Boeing’s F-15X won’t disrupt F-35 program

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Jeff Head said:

I do not know if F-15C/Ds can by modeified to the F-15X standard. I know the F/A-18E/F can be upgraded to the Advanced Hornet standard and that is good.

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