Palantir's Justification for Building ICE's Master Database(404media.co)
404media.co
Palantir's Justification for Building ICE's Master Database
https://www.404media.co/this-is-palantirs-justification-for-building-ices-master-database/
21 comments
Sold my stock the other day. Solid gains and I have no qualms about owning defense stocks, but their behavior here is over the line
> Palantir is cognizant of the risks to privacy and civil liberties involved in these mission sets and how they may be influenced by shifts in priorities. Immigration enforcement may undergo significant changes due to any number of factors over the next few years—agency consolidation, enforcement criteria, public opinion, agency and government priorities, the use of advanced Al, etc.—and we will continue to support our teams partnering with ICE to help navigate the terrain as it comes into focus, while providing the tools that will enable the mission in the most accurate, efficient, and transparent way.
Given any knowledge at all of the context, I don't see a way to read this other than "we know this will be used for atrocities but no matter how bad they get, we're into it."
Another one that kind of caught my attention but I'm not completely sure how to interpret:
> We provide the tools for our customers to enable fair treatment and legal protections for individuals across the spectrum of immigration status.
First off calling the government "our customers" seems weird. Does this system have other actual or intended customers? Do they just mean individual states or police departments or something else? Is this service available to private citizens with enough money to spend on it?
Secondly "naturalized citizen" is also one of the formal immigration statuses, if they're using this as a term of art. This is likely the same tool they'll be using to come after journalists, women seeking abortions, protestors, trans healthcare providers (or just trans people themselves), any of the other groups the administration clearly considers its enemies or thinks its base will respond well to the persecution of.
My read on palantir for years now has been that they were very intentionally positioning themselves to take a sort of IBM-in-1930s-europe role if an eliminationist party came to power. This is pretty close to them just saying that themselves.
Given any knowledge at all of the context, I don't see a way to read this other than "we know this will be used for atrocities but no matter how bad they get, we're into it."
Another one that kind of caught my attention but I'm not completely sure how to interpret:
> We provide the tools for our customers to enable fair treatment and legal protections for individuals across the spectrum of immigration status.
First off calling the government "our customers" seems weird. Does this system have other actual or intended customers? Do they just mean individual states or police departments or something else? Is this service available to private citizens with enough money to spend on it?
Secondly "naturalized citizen" is also one of the formal immigration statuses, if they're using this as a term of art. This is likely the same tool they'll be using to come after journalists, women seeking abortions, protestors, trans healthcare providers (or just trans people themselves), any of the other groups the administration clearly considers its enemies or thinks its base will respond well to the persecution of.
My read on palantir for years now has been that they were very intentionally positioning themselves to take a sort of IBM-in-1930s-europe role if an eliminationist party came to power. This is pretty close to them just saying that themselves.
I mean, when has a big tech company ever really cared about the impact of their contracts? I feel like the endgame of capitalism is companies that will sell out the CEO's family for a juicy enough contract.
I actually think this one is quite different. It's not unique but if you look at thiel's and karp's politics it's not a big stretch to guess this was the intended purpose of palantir from the beginning.
I don't think they are merely amorally profit seeking, I believe this is an ideological goal they've been working towards for some time.
I don't think they are merely amorally profit seeking, I believe this is an ideological goal they've been working towards for some time.
I was warned by a very famous college professor (my professor) who happens to be front page HN right now ... that Palantir was evil.
That was in 2008.
That was in 2008.
I talked to an ex-colleague about applying to Palantir to work with him, and he Artfully told me not to do it. He quit the next month.
That place is bad news.
That place is bad news.
Do we draw a distinction between building a DB for ICE deportations and providing AI services to governments that use it to target and kill civilians?
Google and Microsoft do the latter
Google and Microsoft do the latter
The bulk of Palantir's business is military-related. They are THE "go from a target to a kill plan" company, right now, and not only for the US.
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'Someone has to do it' - Hollerith
Because they're non-libertarian capitalists who like a police state and found a good market in the US/Donald Trump and other other authoritarian regimes?
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TL; DR: money
The lower the supply of people willing to do this, the higher Palentir can bid. And thus is the quandary. Discouraging this behavior only makes it more profitable.
"The less people are willing to assassinate people for money the more actual assassins can charge for their services. Discouraging this behavior only makes it more profitable."
The mistakes you make here:
1. You operate under the wrong assumption that there are no other ways to deal with unintended behavior than making ir unprofitable. There are ways. for example you can just make cerrain business practises illegal and jail those who earn money with them.
2. If others would do it that would make a more competitive market. A more competitive market does not stop a undesired practise it normalizes it.
3. Just because there is a demand doesn't make it ethically right. Demand is totally decoupled from whether a practise should be allowed or not.
4. The problem is that your overreaching government is asking for a thing that is likely against the spirit and the letter of your constitution. What Palantir is doing is wrong because the premise of the project is wrong.
The mistakes you make here:
1. You operate under the wrong assumption that there are no other ways to deal with unintended behavior than making ir unprofitable. There are ways. for example you can just make cerrain business practises illegal and jail those who earn money with them.
2. If others would do it that would make a more competitive market. A more competitive market does not stop a undesired practise it normalizes it.
3. Just because there is a demand doesn't make it ethically right. Demand is totally decoupled from whether a practise should be allowed or not.
4. The problem is that your overreaching government is asking for a thing that is likely against the spirit and the letter of your constitution. What Palantir is doing is wrong because the premise of the project is wrong.
I didn't make any mistake. I considered all four of your very obvious points, which everyone here knows, it is excruciatingly boring to point them out.
But people are loathe to look at unintended consequences, I want to present one of them I find interesting. The mistake you are making so many presumptions about my pointing this out.
The point is you cannot stop this by discouraging the behavior, you only make it more profitable for the guy willing to do the dirty work and take the social shame or whatever comes down.
Therefore it has to be dealt with some other way.
But people are loathe to look at unintended consequences, I want to present one of them I find interesting. The mistake you are making so many presumptions about my pointing this out.
The point is you cannot stop this by discouraging the behavior, you only make it more profitable for the guy willing to do the dirty work and take the social shame or whatever comes down.
Therefore it has to be dealt with some other way.
So you made a point about the most basic principles of a market work (supply and demand) and have the chuzpe to call other peoples points boring? I mean boring is at least a subjective metric and we can agree to disagree on matters of taste, but come on.
> The point is you cannot stop this by discouraging the behavior [...] Therefore it has to be dealt with some other way.
The problem is that this thought does not get any truer by you just repeating it. I already pointed that out in my post which you probably overlooked out of boredom idk.
So lets try to adress this:
My analogous example with murder (asassination) was an example where societies don't have to fall back on insane "strategies" like expanding markets to keep asassinations down, instead they make the unwanted behavior illegal, punish it and shape society in a way the unwanted behavior (asassinations) are not needed — e.g. by having a working justice system were people can sue each other when they think someone else did them wrong. That won't stop every asassination, but it will be good enough as the very real numbers show. Societies that came down hard on things like "blood revenge" and showed competing clans the differences can be settled in court with the state as a neutral arbiter of power thst can't be influenced have less of it.
Now to your idea again:
You seem to think the issue is that Palantir gets a lot of money. That is not" the issue. The issue is that they are even able to offer that specific service to a public entity. Your argument was that if only more companies had the questionable ethics of Palantir and entered the market this would somehow* lead to less of that behavior? This would drive prices down and reduce the hurdle for public entities to contract them even further.
If I again made too many presumptions, maybe consider answering in a way that us mere mortals can follow your train of thought. You could start by sketching out what you imagined the "some other way" looked like how you thought this could be dealt with. Because as of now the only way I found of how to read your comment made no sense, but you hold thr keys..
> The point is you cannot stop this by discouraging the behavior [...] Therefore it has to be dealt with some other way.
The problem is that this thought does not get any truer by you just repeating it. I already pointed that out in my post which you probably overlooked out of boredom idk.
So lets try to adress this:
My analogous example with murder (asassination) was an example where societies don't have to fall back on insane "strategies" like expanding markets to keep asassinations down, instead they make the unwanted behavior illegal, punish it and shape society in a way the unwanted behavior (asassinations) are not needed — e.g. by having a working justice system were people can sue each other when they think someone else did them wrong. That won't stop every asassination, but it will be good enough as the very real numbers show. Societies that came down hard on things like "blood revenge" and showed competing clans the differences can be settled in court with the state as a neutral arbiter of power thst can't be influenced have less of it.
Now to your idea again:
You seem to think the issue is that Palantir gets a lot of money. That is not" the issue. The issue is that they are even able to offer that specific service to a public entity. Your argument was that if only more companies had the questionable ethics of Palantir and entered the market this would somehow* lead to less of that behavior? This would drive prices down and reduce the hurdle for public entities to contract them even further.
If I again made too many presumptions, maybe consider answering in a way that us mere mortals can follow your train of thought. You could start by sketching out what you imagined the "some other way" looked like how you thought this could be dealt with. Because as of now the only way I found of how to read your comment made no sense, but you hold thr keys..
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I agree that evil companies have to pay premium for talent, because the pool is (at least somewhat) smaller of who will work for them.
But, this is still a good thing, it means they can't hire as many people with whatever their budget is.
But, this is still a good thing, it means they can't hire as many people with whatever their budget is.