Quick take: This whole saga is an ugly patch for both the US government and big tech. There’s no unified scientific ethics body for artificial intelligence research and the US government has yet to describe its own policies regarding AI beyond blanket statements. AWS continues to be the superior technical choice, the less expensive choice, and would provide the best value to the DoD and the American taxpayer. We continue to look forward to the Court’s review of the many material flaws in the DoD’s evaluation, and we remain absolutely committed to ensuring that the Department has access to the best technology at the best price. Not only is taxpayer money being wasted to represent the government and Microsoft in court because the DoD’s selection process was flawed from the beginning, but the continuing presence of Donald Trump’s myriad conflicts of interest and utter lack of principles and ethics means that, by the time this is all said and done, we’ll have spent millions of dollars and years in court before the first algorithm gets installed. To use a common military acronym: the whole thing is FUBAR.
