FILE – The logo of Microsoft is seen outside its French headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris on May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
The letter has drawn fresh attention after Microsoft offered buyouts to about 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its workforce. The letter began doing the rounds among colleagues before the October 26 buyout announcement, according to a report by The New York Times. On the last point, they want Microsoft to recommit to being carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030. Two days after the buyouts were announced, Microsoft reported quarterly profit of $36.6 billion, up 32%, on revenue of $92.3 billion. Capital spending, mostly on data centres, rose 30% to $45.2 billion. The company expects to spend about $170 billion this calendar year.
Signed “Concerned Microsoft Workers,” the letter says that for many staff, “working at Microsoft has become joyless and demoralizing. A group of current and former Microsoft employees is circulating an open letter accusing the company of chasing artificial intelligence at the cost of its own people, customers and climate goals. It is the largest such offer in the company’s history. It ties the slump in morale to the period when the company ramped up its AI investments. It also points to heavy workloads, constant reorganisations and the threat of being replaced by AI. It asks Microsoft to involve employees in decisions about how AI is built and used, and to stop linking AI use to rewards or reprimands. Their demands fall under three headings: no AI without worker input and protections, no AI without community protections, and no trading away environmental promises for AI. The group is open to full-time staff, employees of subsidiaries like GitHub and LinkedIn, vendors, interns and contractors. The timing has not gone unnoticed inside the company.