Palantir's Justification for Building ICE's Master Database
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.
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
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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
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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.