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You should also include Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, IBM, Anthropic, and any tech company that has a defence contract with the US Department of Defe
by rvz 11mo ago
You should also include Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, IBM, Anthropic, and any tech company that has a defence contract with the US Department of Defence / War and ICE or any government.
Yet the big problem is of course for those being “principled” about this subject are not serious themselves as some either work there and profit from it, continue to use their products including LLMs or will concede to using them due to social inertia.
The only time this is taken seriously is when all these contracts are scrapped. (They won’t be.)
- exBarrelSpoiler 11mo agoAs cliche is it to cry whataboutism, this clearly is. Incrementalism is better than nothing. Sanctimony is FUD. If even one company is suffers at least it’ll serve as a warning to the others.
- biophysboy 11mo agoI think the difference is that Palantir is significantly more focused on federal contracts, particularly those related to defense/surveillance.
- heavyset_go 11mo agoLarge tech companies are defense contractors now.
- nurettin 11mo agoWDYM "now"? Companies that get large enough get contracts. Even apple sold power macs iphones and ipads to us mil.
- koakuma-chan 11mo agoI'm throwing out my iPhone and moving to Tibet.
- XorNot 11mo agoCompanies that submit bids for contracts get contracts. You would be surprised at the diversity of size and scale of companies which service defense contracts in particular - very small companies can end up in big supply chains because they're the ones who turn up to make the part.
- AndrewKemendo 11mo agoIs there a time they weren’t? Google got their first DoD contract in 2003 from DARPA.
- stocksinsmocks 11mo agoFacebook was Life Log, Oracle was Project Oracle. None of the household names in tech are playing straight.
- AndrewKemendo 11mo agoWhat does “Playing straight” mean? There doesn’t exist a serious technology company ever in the history of technology that didn’t support the state they incorporated in.
- willtemperley 11mo agoAbsolutely. We should not contract any of these companies and use British companies instead.
- jaccola 11mo agoI'm sure AMSTRAD could knock up a few data centres for a couple o quid
- aprilthird2021 11mo agoWhen one domino falls, it will cause many to fall at once
- moogly 11mo agoDon't let the best be the enemy of the good.
- 151212j0j 11mo agoOf course that's the goal, but stopping new contract is 1 step toward the goal my friend, got to stop whining and take baby step. You are saying stopping new coal mine means that everyone need to stop heating now and freeze to death this winter.
- outside1234 11mo agoAs a worker in one of the companies above, I can tell you that we aren’t willing to do just “whatever” to win contracts. We have real responsible AI reviews etc. We would not just hand over data to the US government. It doesn’t seem that way at Palantir.
- anonzzzies 11mo agoBut the issue is, and I am not someone saying we should or can throw everything out, that if the US gov demands it, you have to hand over the data right? If your HQ is in the US? Palantir, for me, is worse because of what they are and their communications as you say, but all of these, when compelled by the courts, have to hand over right?
- whimsicalism 11mo agobest not to do business with any foreign country then. neo-isolationism becomes global and all it took was a second Trump term.
- esseph 11mo ago"all it took was a total loss of international confidence"
- philwelch 11mo agoWhy stop there? You should also boycott the investment firms behind these tech companies, like Y Combinator, and their Internet forums like Hacker News.
- mrcartmeneses 11mo agoSo we can’t take it seriously until the problem is already solved? I think the worry regarding Palantir is that it is explicitly and openly fascist rather than just doing fascism on the side