Over a thousand Amazon employees have signed an open letter addressed to CEO Andy Jassy, urging the company to slow down its rapid rollout of artificial intelligence.
The employees, organised under the banner Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), lambasted what they called the company's "warp-speed", saying it was too focused on making a profit or advancing technology, while ignoring the harm AI could cause.
"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," the letter states.
"We're the workers who develop, train, and use AI, so we have a responsibility to intervene," said the undersigned employees. They outlined the reasons why this was alarming.
Amazon says it wants to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, but its emissions have actually grown by 35 per cent since 2019, the employees said in the letter.
Amazon plans to spend $150 billion on new AI data centers, but the concern is that many of these will be in drought-prone areas, using scarce water, require energy that might keep coal or gas plants running, and they even blocked laws that would have required data centers to use clean energy, they added.
AWS (Amazon Web Services) helps oil companies drill for more oil and gas, leading to carbon emissions.
The letter also states that CEO Andy Jassy wants more AI tools and "agents" in Amazon, which could mean fewer human employees. He claims remaining jobs will be "exciting and fun," but the reality is higher workloads and shorter deadlines and tasks that may waste time or resources, just to implement AI, the employees said.
Amazon is even challenging the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers' rights, the letter added.
Amazon is part of a larger network of tech companies (Meta, Microsoft, Google) lobbying against government regulation of AI for 10 years, states the letter. On top of this, Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, giving him influence over media coverage and shaping public perception of AI.
"All of this is daunting, but none of it is inevitable," the letter states.
What employees demand
They demand the company take immediate action: no AI built with dirty energy, no AI without employee input, and no AI used for violence, surveillance, or mass deportations.
Specifically, they want Amazon to power all data centers with renewable energy, stop building AI tools for oil and gas companies, and create ethical AI working groups that give employees a real say in how AI is deployed.
At least 1,039 Amazon employees have signed the letter so far, and the number is growing. Over 2,400 people outside Amazon have also signed to show support. These include workers from other major companies such as Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple, Uber, Salesforce, Cisco, SpaceX, Boeing, Washington Post, Oracle, Walmart, Target, and Starbucks.
