Bring AI Hype Back Down To Earth

We, the undersigned Amazon employees, have serious concerns about how Amazon is developing and rolling out AI during the global rise of authoritarianism and the ongoing climate crisis. We call on Amazon leadership to articulate a plan to address these concerns and the demands laid out below. 

In recent years, tech leaders have accelerated the development of artificial intelligence into a Cold War-style arms race, where all costs are justified because nothing is more important than building the most powerful AI first. “Sink or swim”, “AI is not going anywhere”, and “work with it or be replaced” have become mantras in workspaces at Amazon and beyond. This sense of inevitability is how senior leadership justifies its massive investments in AI, and manufactures our consent.

Of course we all want the results that AI evangelists and tech CEOs promise. We want international peace, to fix the climate crisis, to have more fulfilling work and more space outside of work. But the way Amazon leadership is choosing to roll out AI is pushing us into the opposite future. If they continue down this path, there will be staggering costs to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.

We do have agency. And as the workers who keep the company running, and who develop, train, and use AI, we bear responsibility to push for a different path. So before it’s too late, we’re sounding the alarm: 

• Amazon is casting aside its climate goals to build AI. Despite committing in 2019 to net zero carbon emissions by 2040, Amazon’s annual emissions have grown roughly 35% since they made the goal -- and they have no credible public glidepath for getting to net zero. Amazon hasn't built enough renewable energy infrastructure to directly power the data centers we already have, yet the company plans to spend $150 billion building new data centers to meet projected demand from AI. Many of these data centers will be in places where utility companies are being forced to keep coal plants online or are planning to build new gas plants, locking us into decades of emissions. 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. All of this is taking place in the few remaining years we have to stop disastrous levels of warming that will devastate our ecosystems, wreak havoc on our ability to feed ourselves, and multiply the threat of conflict and instability.

• Amazon is forcing us to use and train AI, without preparing us for the long-term consequences. In June, Andy Jassy released a letter promising that soon Amazon would be full of AI tools and “agents,” and that he therefore expects to employ fewer humans. He claims our (remaining) jobs will be “even more more exciting and fun,” but here’s what we’re 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, pay increases, or a sustainable work environment. Our logistics coworkers have been especially impacted by work speedups, surveillance, injuries and burnout. No wonder Amazon is attempting to declare the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers’ rights, unconstitutional.

• Amazon is tying itself and the development of AI to authoritarianism. Leaders in the tech world are enabling Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda just as, or perhaps because, the development of AI is reaching a fever pitch. Trump hates diversity, equity and inclusion; Amazon abandoned its commitments to DEI and Jeff Bezos joined the rest of the tech oligarchy in the front row at Trump’s inauguration. Trump wants mass deportations; Palantir, powered by AWS, is helping ICE facilitate deportations and compile data on Americans. Trump wants to court Saudi Arabia; Andy Jassy accompanied him and other tech billionaires on a mission to convince the totalitarian Saudi government to invest huge amounts of capital in AI. Trump wants a military parade on his birthday; Amazon, which contracts with the military, donates to the nonprofit that organized the parade. Trump wants to dismantle checks on his power and the government’s capacity to protect Americans through regulation; Amazon, alongside Google, Meta, and Microsoft, lobbied to ban any state regulation on AI for the next ten years. If they continue, these collaborations will consolidate control of the military, telecommunications, and private data on Americans into the hands of an authoritarian government and a few companies willing to abandon any principles they claim to have in the race for AI dominance. 

We still have time to pivot away from this disastrous path. We want a thriving planet and healthy communities of people who have a say in our own futures. AI could be developed in service of that, but only if we demand a say in that development. So we’re demanding the following:

1. All AI infrastructure must be built sustainably. No more vague promises that “AI will somehow solve the climate crisis.” We need real action that reduces our emissions by rapidly phasing out fossil fuels. This means having a public plan that includes: 1) coupling all data centers — not just the new ones — with enough additional, local renewable energy and transmission lines to actually power their operations 24/7, 2) eliminating the reliance on low-quality carbon offsets and credits, 3) ending custom AI solutions for oil & gas companies to drill faster, 4) industry-standard verification that Amazon’s emission targets are backed by real science, and more.

2. As the people whose work powers Amazon’s success, we must have a say in how AI is developed and used. We call on leadership to host a live All-Hands about AI with an open-to-all Q&A, without screening questions, so that we are able to ask questions and voice concerns without censorship. Following the All-Hands, each organization must have a council of non-managerial workers, chosen by their peers, with a consequential role in major decisions regarding AI, including how or if AI use is to be mandated, how or if AI is used to surveil workers, and how or if AI-related layoffs or headcount freezes are implemented. That doesn’t just go for tech workers; it goes for Amazon workers across the company, including logistics workers.

3. Amazon must stop enabling authoritarianism. As we write this, AWS is being used to surveil immigrants for deportation, to monitor civilians in Gaza, to compile personal data on Americans, to collaborate with AI companies that specialize in drone warfare, and more. Amazon selling AWS and AI as tools for surveillance, deportation, and warfare must be off the table. So too should the attacks on the National Labor Relations Board and on workers who attempt to unionize, as these are some of the few levers that hold corporate and authoritarian powers accountable.

We believe in building a better world — not in building bunkers to fall back to. We need our company to operate in a way that respects workers, communities where it operates, and the natural world. We want the promised gains from AI to allow all people more freedom to play and rest, to spend time with our family and friends, to be moved by nature, to create, to feel safe being who we are. 

We are living in an incredibly consequential moment of history: the climate crisis, the resurgence of authoritarianism, and the rise of artificial intelligence are here. We cannot stand idly by. Leadership will try to sow fear and make us doubt that we can do anything to change their decisions. But Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and thousands of corporate workers have before. The choices we make now, for the planet, for its people and animals, matter more than ever. Let’s be brave, together.