{"id":159162,"date":"2025-11-29T05:23:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T05:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/159162\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T05:23:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T05:23:13","slug":"thousands-of-amazon-employees-send-open-letter-to-ceo-andy-jassy-say-were-the-workers-who-develop-train-and-use-ai-so-we-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/159162\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Amazon employees send open letter to CEO Andy Jassy; say: We\u2019re the workers who develop, train, and use AI, so we have …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThousandsOver 1,000 Amazon employees have signed an open letter warning of dire consequences from the company’s rapid AI development. They argue Amazon is sacrificing climate goals and its human workforce for AI dominance, citing increased emissions, water consumption for data centers, and job displacement. The workers demand ethical AI practices, including clean energy use and employee involvement in AI decisions. Thousands of Amazon<\/a> employees have signed an open letter issuing some dire warnings about the company\u2019s move toward AI. The letter, signed by more than 1,000 workers (and counting) calls out Amazon for pushing its AI investments at the expense of the climate and its human workforce. The letter\u2019s supporters come from a wide array of roles at the company, including many software engineers, and even employees focused on building AI systems. “We believe that the all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development will do staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth,\u201d the letter\u2019s authors wrote. It adds, \u201cWe\u2019re the workers who develop, train, and use AI, so we have a responsibility to intervene.\u201dThe letter is reportedly signed by Amazon workers anonymously, and comes almost a month after Amazon announced mass layoff plans as it increases adoption of AI in its operations. Among the signatories are employees in a range of positions, including engineers, product managers and warehouse associates. The letter argues that their employer is throwing out its climate promises in the scramble to win the AI race. Amazon has pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, pointing to efficiencies from electric delivery vehicles and reduced plastic packaging in its climate commitment. <\/p>\n

Amazon Launches Largest Layoff Drive Yet, Cutting 30,000 Corporate Positions to Boost Efficiency<\/p>\n

Here’s the complete open letter from Amazon 1000-plus employees:<\/p>\n

Dear Andy Jassy and S-team,<\/p>\n

In recent years, tech leaders have accelerated their race to build the most powerful AI first. \u201cSink or swim,\u201d \u201cAI is not going anywhere,\u201d and \u201cwork with it or be replaced\u201d have become mantras in workspaces at Amazon and beyond. <\/p>\n

We, the undersigned Amazon employees, have serious concerns about this aggressive rollout during the global rise of authoritarianism and our most important years to reverse the climate crisis. We believe that the all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development will do staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re the workers who develop, train, and use AI, so we have a responsibility to intervene. Here\u2019s why we\u2019re sounding the alarm:<\/p>\n

Amazon is casting aside its climate goals to build AI. We have just a few years to stop disastrous levels of warming. Yet despite committing to net zero carbon emissions by 2040, Amazon\u2019s annual emissions have grown roughly 35% since 2019. The AI race is widening this gap. The company plans to spend $150 billion building new data centers for AI. Many of these will be in drought-stressed regions, where they will consume scarce water, or in locations where their energy demands will force utility companies to keep coal plants online or build new gas plants. Amazon even killed legislation that would have required its data centers to use clean energy. Meanwhile, AWS is helping oil companies drill for more oil and gas. <\/p>\n

Amazon is forcing us to use AI while investing in a future where it\u2019s easier to discard us. Andy Jassy promised that soon Amazon will be full of AI tools and \u201cagents,\u201d and that he expects to employ fewer humans. He claims our (remaining) jobs will be \u201ceven more exciting and fun,\u201d but here\u2019s what we\u2019re actually experiencing: higher expected output and shorter timelines, mandates to build AI tools for wasteful use cases, and massive investment in AI with little investment in career advancement. Our logistics coworkers have been especially impacted by work speedups, surveillance, injuries and burnout. All this, while Amazon is attempting to declare the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers\u2019 rights, unconstitutional. <\/p>\n

Amazon is helping build a more militarized surveillance state with fewer protections for ordinary people. Amazon, alongside Meta, Microsoft and Google lobbied to ban state regulation on AI for the next ten years; Trump financially disincentivized state regulatory action in his AI Action Plan. Trump demanded an end to \u201cwokeness\u201d in AI; Amazon has scaled back its commitments to DEI and offered the administration a 1 billion dollar coupon for AWS, with a DOGE staffer calling the deal \u201ca foundational piece to help implement President Trump\u2019s AI Action Plan.\u201d The military wants AI technologies at top speed; Amazon has announced a collaboration with an autonomous weapons software company. Trump\u2019s ICE Director wants to run mass deportation \u201clike Prime, but with human beings\u201d; Amazon, a major provider of cloud services to DHS and to Palantir, literally does power mass deportation. Amazon is expanding the surveillance state in other ways, too. It\u2019s making Ring AI-first and re-introducing a tool for police to request footage; it\u2019s using AI to surveil warehouse workers, and, of course, its own customers. Finally, Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, and has begun asserting more control over that publication; the other major AI players control mass information ecosystems like Instagram and X. If these collaborations continue, we will be ceding an unbelievable amount of power into the hands of an increasingly authoritarian government and a few companies willing to abandon any principles they claim to have in the race for AI dominance.<\/p>\n

All of this is daunting, but none of it is inevitable. A better future is still very much within reach, but it requires us to get real about the costs of AI and the guardrails we need.<\/p>\n

We demand Amazon leadership commit to the following:<\/p>\n

No AI with dirty energy.<\/p>\n

No more vague promises that \u201cAI will solve the climate crisis.\u201d Amazon must implement a public plan that includes: 1) powering all data centers with 100% additional, local renewable energy, 24\/7, 2) ending custom AI solutions for oil & gas companies to drill more oil faster, and 3) publishing a detailed, science-backed glidepath for how it will meet its climate commitments.<\/p>\n

No AI without employee voices.<\/p>\n

We want ethical AI working groups of non-managers across the company that will have significant ownership over org-level goals and how or if AI should be used in their orgs, how or if AI-related layoffs or headcount freezes are implemented, and how to mitigate or minimize the collateral effects of AI use, such as environmental impact. <\/p>\n

No AI for violence, surveillance, or mass deportation.<\/p>\n

Amazon sells a huge range of products and services \u2014 from physical goods to digital infrastructure to films to medical services. It should not need to be helping surveil civilians in Gaza, collaborating with AI companies that specialize in drone warfare, or supporting a mass deportation machine.<\/p>\n

The Amazon employees signing this letter believe in building a better world \u2014 not in building bunkers to fall back to. We want the promised gains from AI to give everyone more freedom to play and rest, to spend time with family and friends, to be moved by nature, to create, to feel safe being who we are. <\/p>\n

This is an incredibly consequential moment in history. It\u2019s time for us to step up and spark a conversation about the real benefits and costs of AI. Workers have guided Amazon to a better path before, and we can do it again. The choices we make now, for the planet, for its people and animals, matter more than ever. Let\u2019s make ones we can be proud of.<\/p>\n

Signed,<\/p>\n

1,039 Amazon employees (and counting!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 1,000 Amazon employees have signed an open letter warning of dire consequences from the company’s rapid AI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,414,104921,104920,104922,61307,363,364,3207,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-159162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-amazon","10":"tag-amazon-employees-letter","11":"tag-amazon-workers-letter","12":"tag-amazon-workers-letter-to-andy-jassy","13":"tag-andy-jassy","14":"tag-artificial-intelligence","15":"tag-artificialintelligence","16":"tag-jeff-bezos","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}