4 ms·

Palantir's entire business model is taking on customers/projects that the rest of Silicon Valley refuses to. Not only is there an "underserved" audience, they g

Palantir's entire business model is taking on customers/projects that the rest of Silicon Valley refuses to. Not only is there an "underserved" audience, they get to charge a premium and for worse products. The irony is that this is a good reminder of the harsh realities that Oppenheimer himself clearly grappled with - if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will.

greenavocado 2y ago
The silver lining is that the people with less scruples might also be less competent and their solutions more fragile resulting in operational failure when deployed, in turn saving humanity.
- jnwatson 2y ago
  Or be less competent and accidentally destroy humanity. Both seem possible with imagined future AI-enabled weapons systems.
- to11mtm 2y ago
  The bigger concern is that the failures are either ones that make society worse but nobody will fix, or, the failure is catastrophic (e.x. It didn't go full skynet, but who the heck knew -that- set of datapoints would trigger an autolaunch?)
- swatcoder 2y ago
  Keep in mind that operational failures don't always look like a quiet fizzle. Failures can just as well be catastrophic or can trigger further reactions that become so. I'm not sure there's a silver lining there worth looking for.
- legitster 2y ago
  Maybe. But based on what I have heard Palantir has no problem finding talent. There are enough people in the world excited about Palantir's... niche... that have people lining up out the door for new job postings. That and they have a much stronger meritocracy than most other tech companies feel comfortable enforcing.
- wolverine876 2y ago
  > The silver lining is that the people with less scruples might also be less competent and their solutions more fragile resulting in operational failure when deployed, in turn saving humanity. Think of the complete lack of agency, the powerlessness, of that perspective. 'If we do nothing, maybe they'll shoot themselves in the foot.' It's 'freeze' in the fight/flight/freeze response to danger. In fairness, the parent didn't say that's all we'll do, but few talk about actual actions, solutions, with full agency and responsibility. The solution isn't a silver lining to a cloud, it's what we will do to make a better world. If we don't make one, who will?
wolverine876 2y ago
> if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will. Every time you see an argument for the inevitability of X - especially something frightening - know that it's just an old rhetorical tactic, even cheap playground trash talk. It's comic book lingo. They want you to quit; they are afraid of what you will do.
croes 2y ago
>if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will. Pretty lame excuse. If I don't sell drugs, some else will. If you're doing it, you are already the one with less scruples. Do you think the victims care about the scruples of the perpetrator?
- octopoc 2y ago
  Yeah it's really just an excuse to be evil while feeling righteous and conflicted about it, and saying "You don't understand" to anyone who objects to your behavior.
- alan-hn 2y ago
  No the ones with less scruples are cutting the drug supply with harmful stuff including but not limited to xylazine and fentanyl/nitazene analogs
  - croes 2y ago
    Because it much better to die from clean overdose? That's like saying, I kill people with a clean knife, I don't want them to get an infection from a dirty blade.
    - alan-hn 2y ago
      Overdose is less likely to happen with an unadulterated product because the dosage can actually be measured. You can't measure a dose with a product of unknown concentration. The dose response curves and ED50s are known for all of these substances but people keep dying because they don't actually know how much they're taking
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - rysertio 2y ago
      you're less likely to die from a fentanyl shot that you know the exact concentration of, than injecting adulterated white powder with nothing to base the dosage on.
mmaniac 2y ago
Most people don't consider themselves to be unscrupulous or to be morally wrong in general. Anyone who would intentionally choose to be compared to Oppenheimer should sooner be scrutinised for his own ethical dubiousness rather than his competitors.
sho_hn 2y ago
It feels very difficult to get a good sense of Palantir's quality. All I know is the rabid fanbase the company has, most of whom have never used a single peoduct they make. I'd love to see some authentic experience reports.
- vundercind 2y ago
  I’m in the corporate, not spying/war, space, and only have second-hand accounts (from people I trust) but the impression I get is they peddle unremarkable data analysis products to businesses, relying on your buying lots of dev hours from their team to actually make half the stuff they sold you work. Basically just boring IBM-type shit, except maybe even less honest and professional.
germinator 2y ago
> The irony is that this is a good reminder of the harsh realities that Oppenheimer himself clearly grappled with - if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will. The dilemma was quite different: if you don't do it, your enemy will beat you to it and will kill you and the people you love. It was a very utilitarian, wartime calculation. The soft variant you're quoting is just a license to misbehave because others also misbehave - and I don't think that was Oppenheimer's qualm.
pdfernhout 2y ago
The deeper irony is outlined in my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity". I expand on that theme in this essay (from 2010): https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce... "There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ... The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream. We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working")." Some ideas from me circa 2011 on how security agencies can actually build a more secure world once they recognize the irony of their current approach: "The need for FOSS intelligence tools for sensemaking etc." https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/-The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc.-/76207-8319 https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.idea... "This suggestion is about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines (including at a linked elaboration) why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such free and open source software (FOSS) "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security. I feel open source tools for collaborative structured arguments, multiple perspective analysis, agent-based simulation, and so on, used together for making sense of what is going on in the world, are important to our democracy, security, and prosperity. Imagine if, instead of blog posts and comments on topics, we had searchable structured arguments about simulations and their results all with assumptions defined from different perspectives, where one could see at a glance how different subsets of the community felt about the progress or completeness of different arguments or action plans (somewhat like a debate flow diagram), where even a year of two later one could go back to an existing debate and expand on it with new ideas. As good as, say, Slashdot [or Hacker News] is, such a comprehensive open source sensemaking system would be to Slashdot as Slashdot is to a static webpage. It might help prevent so much rehashing the same old arguments because one could easily find and build on previous ones. ... As with that notion of "mutual security", the US intelligence community needs to look beyond seeing an intelligence tool as just something proprietary that gives a "friendly" analyst some advantage over an "unfriendly" analyst. Instead, the intelligence community could begin to see the potential for a free and open source intelligence tool as a way to promote "friendship" across the planet by dispelling some of the gloom of "want and ignorance" (see the scene in "A Christmas Carol" with Scrooge and a Christmas Spirit) that we still have all too much of around the planet. So, beyond supporting legitimate US intelligence needs (useful with their own closed sources of data), supporting a free and open source intelligence tool (and related open datasets) could become a strategic part of US (or other nation's) "diplomacy" and constructive outreach. ..."

greenavocado 2y ago

The silver lining is that the people with less scruples might also be less competent and their solutions more fragile resulting in operational failure when deployed, in turn saving humanity.

jnwatson 2y ago
Or be less competent and accidentally destroy humanity. Both seem possible with imagined future AI-enabled weapons systems.
to11mtm 2y ago
The bigger concern is that the failures are either ones that make society worse but nobody will fix, or, the failure is catastrophic (e.x. It didn't go full skynet, but who the heck knew -that- set of datapoints would trigger an autolaunch?)
swatcoder 2y ago
Keep in mind that operational failures don't always look like a quiet fizzle. Failures can just as well be catastrophic or can trigger further reactions that become so. I'm not sure there's a silver lining there worth looking for.
legitster 2y ago
Maybe. But based on what I have heard Palantir has no problem finding talent. There are enough people in the world excited about Palantir's... niche... that have people lining up out the door for new job postings. That and they have a much stronger meritocracy than most other tech companies feel comfortable enforcing.
wolverine876 2y ago
> The silver lining is that the people with less scruples might also be less competent and their solutions more fragile resulting in operational failure when deployed, in turn saving humanity. Think of the complete lack of agency, the powerlessness, of that perspective. 'If we do nothing, maybe they'll shoot themselves in the foot.' It's 'freeze' in the fight/flight/freeze response to danger. In fairness, the parent didn't say that's all we'll do, but few talk about actual actions, solutions, with full agency and responsibility. The solution isn't a silver lining to a cloud, it's what we will do to make a better world. If we don't make one, who will?

wolverine876 2y ago

> if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will. Every time you see an argument for the inevitability of X - especially something frightening - know that it's just an old rhetorical tactic, even cheap playground trash talk. It's comic book lingo. They want you to quit; they are afraid of what you will do.

croes 2y ago

>if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will. Pretty lame excuse. If I don't sell drugs, some else will. If you're doing it, you are already the one with less scruples. Do you think the victims care about the scruples of the perpetrator?

octopoc 2y ago
Yeah it's really just an excuse to be evil while feeling righteous and conflicted about it, and saying "You don't understand" to anyone who objects to your behavior.
alan-hn 2y ago
No the ones with less scruples are cutting the drug supply with harmful stuff including but not limited to xylazine and fentanyl/nitazene analogs
- croes 2y ago
  Because it much better to die from clean overdose? That's like saying, I kill people with a clean knife, I don't want them to get an infection from a dirty blade.
  - alan-hn 2y ago
    Overdose is less likely to happen with an unadulterated product because the dosage can actually be measured. You can't measure a dose with a product of unknown concentration. The dose response curves and ED50s are known for all of these substances but people keep dying because they don't actually know how much they're taking
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rysertio 2y ago
    you're less likely to die from a fentanyl shot that you know the exact concentration of, than injecting adulterated white powder with nothing to base the dosage on.

mmaniac 2y ago

Most people don't consider themselves to be unscrupulous or to be morally wrong in general. Anyone who would intentionally choose to be compared to Oppenheimer should sooner be scrutinised for his own ethical dubiousness rather than his competitors.

sho_hn 2y ago

It feels very difficult to get a good sense of Palantir's quality. All I know is the rabid fanbase the company has, most of whom have never used a single peoduct they make. I'd love to see some authentic experience reports.

vundercind 2y ago
I’m in the corporate, not spying/war, space, and only have second-hand accounts (from people I trust) but the impression I get is they peddle unremarkable data analysis products to businesses, relying on your buying lots of dev hours from their team to actually make half the stuff they sold you work. Basically just boring IBM-type shit, except maybe even less honest and professional.

germinator 2y ago

> The irony is that this is a good reminder of the harsh realities that Oppenheimer himself clearly grappled with - if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will. The dilemma was quite different: if you don't do it, your enemy will beat you to it and will kill you and the people you love. It was a very utilitarian, wartime calculation. The soft variant you're quoting is just a license to misbehave because others also misbehave - and I don't think that was Oppenheimer's qualm.

pdfernhout 2y ago

The deeper irony is outlined in my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity". I expand on that theme in this essay (from 2010): https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce... "There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ... The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream. We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working")." Some ideas from me circa 2011 on how security agencies can actually build a more secure world once they recognize the irony of their current approach: "The need for FOSS intelligence tools for sensemaking etc." https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/-The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc.-/76207-8319 https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.idea... "This suggestion is about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines (including at a linked elaboration) why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such free and open source software (FOSS) "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security. I feel open source tools for collaborative structured arguments, multiple perspective analysis, agent-based simulation, and so on, used together for making sense of what is going on in the world, are important to our democracy, security, and prosperity. Imagine if, instead of blog posts and comments on topics, we had searchable structured arguments about simulations and their results all with assumptions defined from different perspectives, where one could see at a glance how different subsets of the community felt about the progress or completeness of different arguments or action plans (somewhat like a debate flow diagram), where even a year of two later one could go back to an existing debate and expand on it with new ideas. As good as, say, Slashdot [or Hacker News] is, such a comprehensive open source sensemaking system would be to Slashdot as Slashdot is to a static webpage. It might help prevent so much rehashing the same old arguments because one could easily find and build on previous ones. ... As with that notion of "mutual security", the US intelligence community needs to look beyond seeing an intelligence tool as just something proprietary that gives a "friendly" analyst some advantage over an "unfriendly" analyst. Instead, the intelligence community could begin to see the potential for a free and open source intelligence tool as a way to promote "friendship" across the planet by dispelling some of the gloom of "want and ignorance" (see the scene in "A Christmas Carol" with Scrooge and a Christmas Spirit) that we still have all too much of around the planet. So, beyond supporting legitimate US intelligence needs (useful with their own closed sources of data), supporting a free and open source intelligence tool (and related open datasets) could become a strategic part of US (or other nation's) "diplomacy" and constructive outreach. ..."