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Ethics. The amount and scope of information collected by things like Palantir Gotham is beyond invasive. The fact that a police officer can type in your name an
by sswezey 7y ago
Ethics. The amount and scope of information collected by things like Palantir Gotham is beyond invasive. The fact that a police officer can type in your name and know where you were driving is disconcerting. It is about as Big Brother as you can get and not the kind of world I would like to live in. This question is a slippery slope, where people become more and more accustomed to less privacy. If you think this is justifiable, I would highly suggest reading up about the the Stasi in East Germany or read 1984.
- zymhan 7y agoThis exact issue was pointed out many times with automated license plate scanning came into existence. Is it really Palantir's fault for making software to aggregate the data? In my view it is our fault as citizens for allowing the government to collect such data in the first place. Any other company with enough developers and data scientists can do what Palantir does. It's the massive amount of information their software uses that is the concern. But that data is collected by our government, and so we have legal recourse to it, either under current law or by passing new privacy laws.
- mdorazio 7y agoThat’s like asking if it’s really a murderer’s fault for pulling the trigger of a gun manufactured by someone else. Yes, it absolutely is their fault and no, “if they didn’t, someone else would” is not a valid moral excuse, ever.
- zymhan 7y agoWho is the murderer in this analogy? To me it's the government misusing such a tool.
- mdorazio 7y agoPalantir. The government is the gun manufacturer collecting all the needed data in various places.
- zymhan 7y agoWhy though? Palantir isn't the one using the tools for ill. The government is collecting the information and using it, possibly, to violate civil liberties and constitutional rights. What can Palantir do to you?
- ng12 7y agoThat's not what Palantir Gotham does. It's much closer to a sophisticated database and Tableau than some sort of big-brother invasive nightmare.