Asaf Artsi

Oh, but lots of those folks were killed in other ways, you say! Not all were scheduled for termination by computer! Ok then, let’s take the narrowest possible number. Let’s consider only people killed in extermination camps, whose rail system was run by computer.

Let’s not include any deaths at concentration camps such as Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, or Buchenwald, or in prison camps, labor camps, or ghettos. (Even though IBM’s computers & technicians had a huge hand in ‘relocating’ people to those places as well.)

$1.15 That’s how bad IBM felt about each person their algorithms murdered.

I’m going to go hug my kids. Remember that the work you do and who you do it for matters. Ask the questions. The real ones. The uncomfortable ones.

CORRECTION: the numbers tattooed onto prisoners’ bodies at Auschwitz were not IBM computer codes. Thanks @AuschwitzMuseum for the correction & subsequent discussion.https://twitter.com/auschwitzmuseum/status/1038825257535242240?s=21 …

IBM’s technology enabled the Nazis to track people, & their algorithms determined how “relocate” them to camps & ghettos efficiently, but the numbers assigned to prisoners at Auschwitz were generated by hand, & records there were handwritten or typed.

Track people how? By scanning their gacebook posts and analyzing their selfies? The most they could do is use computers to store the details of their victims, count them, and split them to groups. They didn't even have databases then!

And as for IBM responsibility - evil states and organizations acquire and use commercial technologies for their crimes. Sometimes the companies know and don't care, sometimes they don't. Holding them responsible shouldn't be done lightly.