Kalima criticizes Brooklyn Navy Yard tech tenants and military AI
Kalima with Demilitarized Brooklyn Navy Yard says public land is leased to tech companies like Radical AI that develop AI for hypersonic missiles and military surveillance, argues the tech industry cannot self-regulate, and asks the committee to examine whether Navy Yard tenants align with its public mission.
Thank you to the City Council for this opportunity to speak.
My name is Kalima and I'm here with Demilitarized Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is a grassroots campaign to get weapons manufacturers off of public land.
The DBNY campaign is here to hold the Brooklyn Navy Yard accountable for its role in using AI to further the U.S.
Military industrial complex.
Companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple make millions of dollars through contracts with the Department of War that are used to spy on communities abroad and at home.
AI is not the future.
It is another tool of the rich to exploit and surveil everyday people.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard uses public resources to lease to tech companies that use AI to develop weapons.
One of the most recent tenants is Radical AI.
This company uses artificial intelligence to find high entropy alloys that can make metals for hypersonic missiles.
These missiles will further exacerbate the climate crisis, not to mention the human cost.
We have watched schools and homes be destroyed by American bombs.
We cannot turn away as our tax dollars and public land are used to destroy communities across the globe.
The tech industry is incapable of regulating itself.
We see the cozy relationship between the tech industry and the U.S.
Military, as well as the increased use of AI and surveillance of racialized communities by entities like the NYPD and ICE.
DBNY wants these fascist tech companies off of our public land.
This is not what New Yorkers want or tax.
dollars to be paying for.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard's role in housing tech companies that work with the U.S.
Military makes them complicit in the war crimes that the U.S.
Is committing.
DBNY is asking this committee to do its job and to examine the tech companies leasing public land at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to ensure that they are actually in line
with the Navy Yard's mission to support the greater good, instead of contributing to ecocide, genocide, and deportations.
Our public land should be used to provide community resources, services, and education, not to create new technologies that will infringe on our human rights.
Thank you.