Palantir’s manifesto for an armed Silicon Valley | EUROtoday
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Palantir Technologies, flagship of knowledge processing and navy evaluation within the United States, revealed on Saturday April 18 a business brochure coupled with a 22-point manifesto, encouraging Silicon Valley to commit physique and soul to the service of the American military-industrial advanced.
“Silicon Valley’s technical elite have a duty to participate in the defense of the nation,” Palantir stated in a textual content calling for a “Technology Republic,” written by CEO Alex Karp and shut affiliate Nicholas Zamiska.
“The question is not whether AI weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose,” the corporate explains on X.
“An era of deterrence, the atomic age, is coming to an end. A new era of deterrence based on AI is about to begin,” the manifesto additional predicts.
Well past the – regular – quest for brand new protection contracts, the message goes as far as to suggest the introduction of obligatory navy service within the United States, and requires an finish to the “impotence” of the Japanese and German armies which was decreed after the defeat of the Axis in 1945.
The manifesto additionally suggests tech corporations take a extra muscular position in tackling “violent crime.”
Chastising “elite intolerance toward religious beliefs,” the message referred to as on the United States to reject “empty and hollow pluralism.”
“Certain cultures, and even certain subcultures… have produced wonders. Others have proven to be mediocre, or even worse, regressive and harmful,” says the doc, with out specifying which cultures it’s speaking about.
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Identify the targets that Washington should eradicate
Founded by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir takes its title from artifacts imagined by JRR Tolkien, the creator of “The Lord of the Rings.” These magical stones enable the individuals of Middle-earth to spy on their enemies from a distance.
An echo of the true world, the place Palantir supplies its prospects with information processing software program that enables them to convey collectively info scattered throughout completely different platforms and in numerous codecs. This permits analysts to uncover advanced patterns that may in any other case be misplaced in clouds of knowledge.
And the principle consumer of Peter Thiel’s firm is none aside from the American authorities, its armed forces, its intelligence companies and its police forces.
Palantir’s companies have been broadly utilized by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) company to hold out mass and sometimes violent deportations of undocumented migrants. Last April, the Department of Homeland Security awarded it an almost $30 million contract to develop an AI-based system to trace individuals dealing with detention and deportation.
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Palantir additionally supplied the Israeli navy with AI-based analytics instruments throughout its Gaza offensive, which killed greater than 70,000 Palestinians in line with UN figures – confirmed by the Jewish state – and decreased a lot of the territory to rubble.
In 2024, the corporate signed a strategic partnership with the federal government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strengthen the nation’s “war effort.” The latter is accused by the International Criminal Court of crimes in opposition to humanity and conflict crimes.
Because Palantir doesn’t conceal its militaristic inclination. Shyam Sankar, its technical director, just lately commissioned as a lieutenant colonel within the U.S. Army Reserve, instructed the New York Times that the corporate was “very well known” for scouting targets for the U.S. navy to eradicate.
“Help the West to be fierce”
According to William Hartung, senior researcher on the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Palantir’s proximity to Washington dates again to the beginnings of the “war on terror.” Its mission, after September 11, 2001, was to keep away from failures within the sharing of data between completely different American companies, which had made the assaults attainable.
This guess proved extraordinarily profitable. The Pentagon has requested Congress for a further $2.3 billion in funding to develop the Maven Smart System, an AI concentrating on platform designed by Palantir for the US navy. The contract was initially awarded to Google, which was finally compelled to desert the challenge within the face of opposition from its workers.
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Diederick van Wijk, a researcher on the Dutch assume tank Clingendael Institute, believes Palantir executives view their firm as proudly shouldering a duty that others have rejected.
“What they think – Alex Karp and Peter Thiel in particular – is that Silicon Valley has moved away from its founding principle, which is the relationship between the military and industry, and is oriented entirely towards consumer technologies. And they find it problematic that companies that hold so much power, data and technology are not more patriotic.”
Certainly, Peter Thiel and Alex Karp appear to diverge on the exact contours of their perception programs. The latter thus supported Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in 2024. But the 2 males have lengthy professed an attachment to an idealized imaginative and prescient of Western civilization, analyzes Diederick van Wijk.
“From the beginning, they had a very normative vision of what this company should be, limited to working for the United States, then Europe, but still refusing to work with Russia and China. There was always this idea that this company could really help the West to be fierce, to ‘protect it at all costs,’ in terminology often used by Alex Karp.”
This name for a refocus on navy energy to defend a supposedly failing West strongly echoes the speeches of sure influential figures of the second Trump time period, before everything Vice-President JD Vance.
The nationwide safety technique launched final 12 months by the Trump administration targeted on what it described as the chance of “civilizational erasure” that Western Europe would face following a long time of mass migration.
For his half, Peter Thiel even declared that he thought-about democracy incompatible with freedom.
“Act without being accountable to anyone”
A profitable ideology within the Trump period. News of the billionaire’s re-election alone despatched the corporate’s market capitalization up by $23 billion, with traders speeding to purchase shares within the firm.
And the traces separating Palantir employees and the US state are more and more porous: after his return to enterprise, Donald Trump appointed a number of Palantir executives to key authorities positions, whereas the corporate, in flip, recruited former lawmakers and civil servants.
“Palantir goes well beyond its scope. It should be content to be a supplier, offering technology useful for the implementation of policies determined by the democratic process,” judges William Hartung. “They have knowledge of certain types of technology, but they are not philosopher-kings.”
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“At some point, this technology would have seen the light of day anyway,” notes Diederick van Wijk. “We’re focused on this business, when we should be focused on the technology behind it – the technology that can completely change the dynamics of law enforcement and warfare.”
But Peter Thiel attracts consideration by a speech that’s “anti-democracy, anti-government, anti-liberal society. He is a very frank libertarian with very particular ideas,” continues the researcher.
“That’s where the uneasiness comes from. The company has a conspiratorial side which makes it an obvious culprit, but hiding a much broader trend: that of technological companies so powerful, so little regulated, that they are capable of innovating and acting where they deem it necessary. Without being accountable to anyone.”
This article was tailored from English by Sophian Aubin.
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https://www.france24.com/fr/%C3%A9co-tech/20260424-le-manifeste-de-palantir-pour-une-silicon-valley-en-armes