Microsoft Investigates Itself and a Customer: Finding? Nothing to See Here
May 26, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby and his itty bitty computer.
GeekWire, creator of the occasional podcast, published “Microsoft: No Evidence Israeli Military Used Technology to Harm Civilians, Reviews Find.” When an outfit emits occasional podcasts published a story, I know that the information is 100 percent accurate. GeekWire has written about Microsoft and its outstanding software. Like Windows Central, the enthusiasm for what the Softies do is a key feature of the information.
What did I learn included:
- Israel’s military uses Microsoft technology
- Israel may have used Microsoft technology to harm non-civilians
- The study was conducted by the detail-oriented and consistently objective company. Self-study is known to be reliable, a bit like research papers from Harvard which are a bit dicey in the reproducible results department
- The data available for the self-study was limited; that is, Microsoft relied on an incomplete data set because certain information was presumably classified
- Microsoft “provided limited emergency support to the Israeli government following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.”
Yeah, that sounds rock solid to me.
Why did the creator of Bob and Clippy sit down and study its navel? The write up reported:
Microsoft said it launched the reviews in response to concerns from employees and the public over media reports alleging that its Azure cloud platform and AI technologies were being used by the Israeli military to harm civilians.
The Microsoft investigation concluded:
its recent reviews found no evidence that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has failed to comply with its terms of service or AI Code of Conduct.
That’s a fact. More than rock solid, the fact is like one of those pre-Inca megaliths. That’s really solid.
GeekWire goes out on a limb in my opinion when it includes in the write up a statement from an individual who does not see eye to eye with the Softies’ investigation. Here’s that passage:
A former Microsoft employee who was fired after protesting the company’s ties to the Israeli military, he said the company’s statement is “filled with both lies and contradictions.”
What’s with the allegation of “lies and contradictions”? Get with the facts. Skip the bogus alternative facts.
I do recall that several years ago I was told by an Israeli intelware company that their service was built on Microsoft technology. Now here’s the key point. I asked if the cloud system worked on Amazon? The response was total confusion. In that English language meeting, I wondered if I had suffered a neural malfunction and posed the question, “Votre système fonctionne-t-il sur le service cloud d’Amazon?” in French, not English.
The idea that this firm’s state-of-the-art intelware would be anything other than Microsoft centric was a total surprise to those in the meeting. It seemed to me that this company’s intelware like others developed in Israel would be non Microsoft was inconceivable.
Obviously these professionals were not aware that intelware systems (some of which failed to detect threats prior to the October 2023 attack) would be modified so that only adversary military personnel would be harmed. That’s what the Microsoft investigation just proved.
Based on my experience, Israel’s military innovations are robust despite that October 2023 misstep. Furthermore, warfighting systems if they do run on Microsoft software and systems have the ability to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. This is an important technical capability and almost on a par with the Bob interface, Clippy, and AI in Notepad.
I don’t know about you, but the Microsoft investigation put my mind at ease.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2025
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