Brian Eno, the composer of the startup sound for Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system, as well as many other works, has issued an open letter urging the tech company to cut ties with the Israeli military.
Entitled "Not in My Name," the letter cites a blog post from May 15 wherein Microsoft acknowledged that it provides Israel's Ministry of Defence with "software, professional services, Azure cloud services and Azure AI services, including language translation."
The company added, "It is important to acknowledge that Microsoft does not have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices," but Eno read it as evidence of Microsoft's collaboration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and "support of a regime" that, in the musician's words, "is engaged in actions described by leading legal scholars and human rights organizations, the United Nations experts, and increasing numbers of governments from around the world, as genocidal."
"Selling and facilitating advanced AI and cloud services to a government engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing is not 'business as usual.' It is complicity," Eno wrote. "If you knowingly build systems that can enable war crimes, you inevitably become complicit in those crimes."
The composer continued, "I call on Microsoft to suspend all services that support any operations that contribute to violations of international law," going on to extend an invitation to artists, technologists, musicians "and all people of conscience" to join him in holding the corporation accountable.
"I also pledge that the fee I originally received for the Windows 95 chime will now go towards helping the victims of the attacks on Gaza," Eno concluded. "If a sound can signal a real change then let it be this one." Read his full letter below.