Palantir: the world's most evil company

Last year I thought of buying some Palantir shares. The share price was at historic lows, but I had been paying attention to what kind of business Palantir was doing and with whom. It was clear that it was quietly positioning itself to be a leader in data analysis for military and intelligence agencies, including through the use of AI. And that is obviously a very lucrative niche that, unfortunately, will grow over time - especially for those promoted by the US government.

The reason I didn’t invest was because one has to draw the line somewhere on the kinds of companies you’re willing to profit from, and I see Palantir as ultimately taking the title of the world’s most evil company.

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Since my decision not to invest in the company, the Palantir share price has risen by about 500%, helped by the recent election of Donald Trump whose campaign received a large donation from Palantir chairman Peter Thiel.

As an example of the evil nature of Palantir’s work, it appears that Palantir has been working with the Israeli military in so-called ‘targeted killings’. Reports have suggested such that these murders, probably in the thousands or tens of thousands, utilised social media information and cellphone tracking. According to a range of sources, over 150 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza and in numerous cases they appear to have been directly targeted. Using social media information to murder journalists using drone strikes is already dystopic, but this is likely to just be the beginning of the evil Palantir will facilitate.

You can watch Thiel stumbling awkwardly in response to a question about Palantir’s AI programme called Lavender [the pros always choose a harmless sounding name for something evil] for killings in Palestine:

But the dystopian danger posed by Palantir is not at all specific to Trump. The CEO of Palantir, Alexander Karp, donated to Kamala Harris’s campaign before the recent US election.

You can watch him in a recent shareholder briefing saying that we have ‘dedicated our company to the service of the West and the United States of America…especially in places we can’t talk about’ and ‘Palantir is here to help institutions we partner with be the best in the world…and when necessary to scare enemies and on occasion kill them…We hope you’re in favour of that…[and] are enjoying being a partner…we’re really happy and enjoying what we’re doing’:

Prior to its role in murders and massacres in Palestine, the most recent issue that drew attention to how dangerous the company is, is that it was given a contract to manage the data of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. In theory, Palantir is supposed to operate the system in such a way that it never actually stores the data on its own servers and does not access it for any other purpose. But this is a company that may have been using social media information to help the Israeli military target drone strikes at Palestinian journalists: why would a company willing to enable war crimes care about legal niceties about data use in another country? Concerns have been raised by a wide range of voices in the United Kingdom, including academics and medical professionals, but there is sufficient continuity between the conservative government and the fake left-wing Labour government of Keir Starmer that they appear determined to push through with the plan.

Given this kind of data and what Palantir’s focus and loyalties are, it seems very likely it will find ways to use biometric, health and DNA data to kill both individuals and groups using autonomous drones. I expect that will become possible in the next 5 years, if it has not already been developed covertly.

For those who have seen the famously dystopian movie Minority Report, Palantir is the company that is most likely to make this kind of scene a reality in the near future:

I have no optimistic take on this: the kinds of people in the United States in charge of such developments are quite evidently psychopathic (just watch excerpts of Karp’s recent statements above and past statements by the likes of Thiel) and at this stage there is nothing to restrain this psychopathy, which is crudely and unconvincingly dressed up as a passion for freedom and democracy. Other countries will inevitably have to follow suit if the USA is going down this road and it has become clear that China will not struggle to do so technologically. But with its imperialist tendencies, vast control over the internet and social media, big tech companies, sprawling military and intelligence operations across the globe, the USA is looking the most likely to envelope the world in a horrific future.