Skip to Content
Silicon Valley

Microsoft employees aren’t happy about a $480 million HoloLens army contract

February 25, 2019

Over 100 Microsoft employees have signed an open letter demanding that the company cancel a contract to developed HoloLens augmented-reality headsets for the US Army.

The details: Microsoft won the contract to deliver 100,000 headsets back in November, with plans for them to be used in training and, in a world first, to help “increase lethality” in live combat. That seems to be the main focus of the group’s concerns.

The demands: As well as abandoning this contract, the employees want Microsoft to cease work on any weapons technologies. They also want it to appoint an independent, external ethics board. “We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,” the letter states. They accuse the contract of turning warfare into a simulated “video game,” further distancing soldiers from the reality of bloodshed.

Timing: The letter came just a couple of days before Microsoft unveiled the second iteration of the HoloLens at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

This story first appeared in our daily newsletter The Download. Sign up now to get your dose of the latest must-read news from the world of emerging tech.

 

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.