The crucial thing though is to make sure that those other companies are in fact able to provide what Google and Microsoft won’t. For example, AWS is very happy to work with government, by offering not only the GovCloud region for regular gov work, but also AWS SC2S and C2S regions for Secret and Top Secret systems and data. This allows other companies to use their cloud infra to provide these defense services.
Imagine the alternative world where a most of the tech execs get to a shared conclusion that they do not want to contribute any of their services towards AI-powered military efforts. This is very much something that could conceivably happen. What then? Sure, if they get then steam-rolled by a peer superpower who doesn’t have such qualms about using AI to achieve their geopolitical goals, you can retort that they get what they asked for (of course, in our year of 2021, it is completely unimaginable that peer powers would ever dare to initiate military invasion, so this is obviously just a pure hypothetical). But is this what American people want?
Americans are, for better or worse, mostly in favor of US military, even at its stupidest (e.g. when it invades other countries that pose no risk to it under false pretenses). Should tech execs get then to decide the future of American people according to their own morality? Should the American people be able to force, through the overwhelming force of federal government, their own morality on individuals running their privately owned companies?
These are hard questions, and I don’t have an easy answer. What I know would help though is open and honest discussion, allowing people to win hearts and minds of others, and more mutual accommodation in the spirit of the famous quote attributed to Voltaire. This is very much not the direction lady 8 years have been pointing towards, though.
We're not arguing that the situation doesn't happen. We're arguing that it's a crappy situation.
But let's untangle something. There is a legitimate difference between this and ICE boycotts. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. are signing B2B contracts and making specific deals to work with the U.S. military or ICE or whatever group. This is not the same issue. It's similar, but different in very important ways.
One is the type of interaction. Business to business contracts are Not like using a platform as a user. A contract is a mutual agreement that is negotiated between two businesses. There are almost always dedicated employees whose responsibilities include dealing with a given contract, not to mention if there's any work to be done as a result of it. This is a very different interaction from merely being one of a million users on a public open-registration platform.
Two is who is protesting. I think some employee protests are silly, but not all of them. If employees don't want to work for a company that is doing what they believe to be unethical things, they are well within reason to threaten to leave the company.
I don't necessarily want to draw a direct conclusion about other similar events here, I'm just trying to point out that we're not dealing with the same kind of relationship.
I'm against banning entities from using e.g. Amazon Web Services, on the basis of their identity, if their usage is above board and legal. I'm not, however, talking about the concept of employees at Amazon not wanting to work for or with other entities directly.
You know, just like they did when it was revealed Microsoft and Google wanted to sign contracts with the US military.