alt Hacker News> signed up with surveillance company Palantir
Just to nitpick, Palantir isn't doing surveillance like Flock. They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments. Some data pipelines include law enforcement surveillance data which get integrated with other software/databases to help police analyze it. There's no evidence they are collecting it themselves despite recent headlines. It's a relatively minor but important distinction IMO.
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Their data integration and sale allows for the government to surveil citizens without probable cause or warrants.
It's funny you'd pick IBM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Though, I guess IBM did get away with lots of stuff that... Actually, did any supply companies in the WWII German war machine actually get in trouble for war crimes, or did they just go after officers and the people actually working in the camps?
The company selling punchcards that were used for logistics was apparently fine. What about the people making the gas canisters, or supplying plumbing fixtures? The plumbers? Where's the line?
Wondering, since this is increasingly becoming a current events question instead of an academic concern.
Sure, but it's not as if the DoD was planning on using Anthropic to _collect_ the data either? I assume that the hypothetical DoD use case Anthropic shied away from dealt with the processing of surveillance data, just like what Palantir does.
I think a company which provides a sensor fusion dragnet for a government-run mass domestic civilian surveillance system is at least as culpable (and odious) than the ones supplying the data.
> They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments
Good thing IBM's data integration was never used for ill!
Basically it’s glorified Excel.
Take it out on the database purveyors, not Palantir.
They are providing the software to do surveillance, They are definetly bad actors, you can dance around this all you want, but they are in it.