Amazon Workers Issue Warning About Company’s ‘All-Costs-Justified’ Approach to AI Development (www.wired.com)

More than 1,000 Amazon employees — from senior engineers and product leads to marketing managers and warehouse staff — anonymously signed an open letter organized by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice warning that the company’s “warp-speed” rush into generative AI risks “staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.” The letter, which drew another ~2,400 supporters from other tech firms, accuses executives of prioritizing rapid AI rollout and cost-cutting (including layoffs) to fund data-center expansion for tools like the shopping chatbot Rufus, which Amazon says could add $10 billion in annual sales. Signatories cite pressure to use internal AI to boost productivity, low-quality outputs they call “slop,” and a lack of worker input on automation decisions. Technically the activists point to concrete harms: training and serving large models is driving dramatic data-center power needs (an internal claim of 10x demand by 2027), prompting utilities to burn more carbon-heavy fuels and straining water resources. Their demands include abandoning fossil-fuel energy at data centers, banning AI uses that enable mass surveillance or deportation, and creating worker-led ethical AI working groups with veto power over automation of roles. Amazon reiterated its net-zero-by-2040 goal but did not address internal-tool or surveillance concerns, leaving unresolved tensions between rapid AI deployment, climate impact, regulatory rollbacks, and workforce protection.