Palentir Panopticon

The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

Alex Karp of the increasingly infamous Palentir AI company has written a book with a predictable title. James Corbett covers it in video with reference links.

Cold Fusion channel also refers to Karp's book and analyses what Palentir does by way of military involvement.:  'He believes engineers have a moral duty to build weapons for the state'.  Strong men and good men will save the world.  'He believes liberal democracy is an obstacle.'  'Peter Theil believes democracy and freedom are incompatible.' "The idea of government will fade away and corporations will run states."  This is already true, we can see how corps have taken over nation states.  Well... His attitude is moving into unusual areas where he philosophises...

"if you do not feel comfortable supporting the legitimate efforts of America and its allies in the context of war, don't join Palentir"

Fair enough, at least he gives an option.  But his work for Israel in Gaza goes against civil rights and creates war crimes which no one is owning up to.  For all this he was paid 6.8 billion in 2025.

Palentir FOUNDRY is used by businesses.  Palentir GOTHAM is presented as an operating system for global decision making. (mainly used in war; also travel and official records.)  By 2010 Palentir was used in battlefield analysis. Data is gathered to build profiles on everyone.  All 6 US military branches and US, German and Australian police all use GOTHAM.

MAVERN is specifically for war; selects military targets for destruction.  Anthropic helped at the start of the Iran attacks. (no wonder Anthropic wanted to withdraw from Pentagon ambitions).

We've moved quickly into drone wars controlled by AI.  "Artificial intelligence raises Ukranian drone kill rates to 80%" - called the test lab for the future of war.  This is exactly whats happening as information technology takes over running wars: we see that the tech firms choose which nations they support.  Karp supports Israel.

"We are controversial, quite frankly, because we power every western power that's at war". ~ Alex Karp

'Palantir’s tech helps detect unusual or suspicious patterns in large datasets using techniques that the founders learned working together at PayPal. The CIA was one of the company’s earliest investors and its only customer for a number of years. Eventually, other intelligence agencies like the FBI and the NSA jumped aboard.'

Karp was personally protested when acting on behalf of ICE, in tracking migrants.  Dystopian predictive crime was also a focus.

"Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world, and, when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and on occasion kill them."

Its been called 'techno-fascism in plain sight'.  Yanis Varoufakis former finance minister for Greece calls Palentir a player in 'technofeudalism' and 'techlordism'.  Palentir pushes a vision of hard power and aggressive technological dominance.  They want to be top dog for institutional western powers.  Just TWO men shouldn't be in control of this.  A real Panopticon.

Karp on Iran situation: CNBC interview.
"Palentir makes valuable LLMs lethal and useful on the battlefield"
"A wide swath of Palentirians working on this."

"drones going through advanced radar systems". ...Can be done with great precision now.
"You have to bring your unique way of doing things which no one else has"

Karp says can't do a blue/red debate. "Nationalisation is coming"..."We need a common purpose"

"We are controversial, quite frankly, because we power every western power that's at war"

Using AI Responsibly

During Operation Epic Fury a girls school was attacked killing 156, on day one a chilling event immediately alerting people everywhere that AI could be responsible.

Burak Oktenli in The Defense Post lays out the scenario about automation of orders and gives some recommendations for better human oversight of AI in 'When the Machine Decides and the Human Signs' i.e. signs off approval for a mission target.  In the school massacre case, old information was used (we are told) of when the school was a military base. AI has to be kept up to date; quite a vast task, but necessary to avoid targeting the innocent.

'No human can independently classify a target, weigh proportionality, and estimate civilian harm in that window, not once every few minutes for days on end. Artificial intelligence did that work. The commander approved the result.'

This crucial factor of human control is emphasised in Military AI:

'A machine cannot be allowed to determine mission-critical outcomes without meaningful human oversight. AI, and especially large language models, must operate within a broader decision-making framework where human judgment, reasoning, and accountability remain central.'

Tech giants need a profound purpose to their work development, to keep it within the interests of human good values for life.  Karp can come up with some outlandish remarks, which has us questioning his sobriety for someone in his position.

"I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanol laced urine sprayed on analysts that try to screw us"