Palantir, a US business, will provide digital weaponry to the Ukrainian military. Its technology is frequently criticized, including in Europe.
 |
| MetaConstellation software of Palantir |
Soldiers using mobile devices to launch rockets, artillery pieces, or armed drones at the front have long been a feature of the Ukrainian battle picture. You can watch where a Russian supply van is driving or where a squad has camped out in real time. They can assault it from a safe distance if they like.
This is made feasible by the "MetaConstellation" software, which is being made accessible to Ukrainian military by the US business Palantir Technologies Inc. It is common knowledge that US software is being used as a weapon in Ukraine.
Surprisingly, managing director Alex Karp recently remarked on this. He hardly never gives interviews. Now he said that his company's software is "responsible for most of the target acquisition in Ukraine".
The customers of Palantir: secret services, investigative authorities, armies
According to reports, the program not only offers information regarding Russian army movements, but it also aids with tank and artillery alignment. According to the Washington Post, she is the reason David beats Goliath here. However, other analysts and strategists believe Ukraine has a head start and can compete with Russia's numerically superior military forces.
So far, Palantir's program is based on information and data from commercial satellites, thermal sensors, and reconnaissance drones. The same as on traditional optical imaging. The data is turned into a map depicting the expected positions of Russian artillery, tanks, and personnel using artificial intelligence (AI). The Ukrainians can then gain access to them and assault them using a tablet.
Palantir's fundamental business is thus to aggregate data in various forms from many sources and make it analyzable. According to reports, the corporation has deep links to the US government.
The firm, named after JRR Tolkien's fantasy classic "Lord of the Rings," was created in 2003. It was designed to first monitor payment operations and detect fraud. The idea originated with Palantir co-founder and current stakeholder Peter Thiel, who expanded on it following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
And with it, he was able to persuade Karp, as he once stated at an event. Thiel's first notion of displaying data was uninteresting, and he couldn't fall in love with it - but with preventing terrorist attacks. And I fell in love with data security and the battle against terrorism," Karp explained.
Thiel, a German-American, immigrated to the United States with his parents and co-founded the online payment firm PayPal in 1999 with others including Elon Musk. He then invested in Facebook and stood on its board of directors until resigning a year ago. The reason is supposedly Donald Trump, who was barred from the stage following the Capitol storming.
Peter Thiel, a conservative-libertarian, admired Trump's combination of entrepreneurship and nationalism. He spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2016 and contributed more than $1 million to Trump's campaign. After Trump's administration ended, he continued to finance his loyalists.
Karp, for his part, is regarded as a political counterbalance to Thiel. He earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Frankfurt, identified himself as progressive in an interview with the US television station CNBC, and contributed $50,000 to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
He has so far refrained from making political pronouncements. Karp, who has subsequently had Palantir's offices transferred to Denver, Colorado, only a year ago chastised Silicon Valley corporations - without naming names - for rejecting or making it difficult to collaborate with the military and law enforcement authorities. Every new technology, "including ours," has the potential to be deadly. Karp believes that software can be used as a weapon. This is also seen in Ukraine.
Karp flew to Kyiv immediately after the start of the conflict, as one of the first CEOs ever, as the Ukrainian digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov declared on Twitter: "Today I and President Zelenskyj received Alex Karp. Alex is the first CEO to arrive in Kyiv following the commencement of the conflict. Support and faith in investment credibility are impressive: agreement on office opening and army digital support."
While some closed their Ukrainian operations and let people go, Palantir's CEO created a new one. When questioned by German newspaper Tagesspiegel, a representative stated, "In our work in the security sector, we regard our duty in particular as enhancing the defense of liberal democracies and their allies, while protecting the liberal ideals that distinguish them."
Palantir sees itself as a defender of liberal democracies
We are also certain that "Ukraine is justified in defending its borders against Russian aggression, and that the precedents created by the current conflict will have long-term consequences for Europe and the rest of the globe."
The fact that Palantir indirectly engages in the conflict by developing software that can detect and destroy targets from a distance raises ethical concerns. The company asserts that neither they nor the software "perform this task".
Their purpose is to "provide military and defense clients with a complete perspective of the information they require to make educated decisions regarding essential mission goals."
But who is accountable for military choices made using algorithms? The spokesperson informed Tagesspiegel that he is aware that some of these decisions are challenging. "The ethical problems involved with our defense work are numerous, and they are important to how we develop, produce, and deploy our software in this sector."
Algorithms and attack targets: Who takes responsibility?
The Privacy and Civil Liberties (PCL) Team is a collection of engineers, lawyers, and philosophers who constantly evaluate the consequences of technology. It helps them maintain their initial belief, "even though the type of data and areas of application in which we operate are continually expanding and also contain ethical considerations with regard to the employment of current software solutions in the military sphere," according to the spokesperson.
Aside from the military, Palantir supplied its services in Europe during another crisis: when the epidemic began, the EU health authority ECDC and numerous EU member states were approached. The offer to nations already swamped by digitization: assistance in tracking viral transmission and anticipating bottlenecks in hospitals. According to "Spiegel," it is also rather inexpensive.
The example of Greece demonstrated that something should have been given in return: the Greek government is alleged to have offered significant access to sensitive data, according to the magazine. A situation that Palantir detractors caution about. Data protectionists are afraid that data will leak outside of Europe. In Germany as well.
Palantir: Search engine for Germany's police
The Ministry of Health in this nation declined Palantir's offer to battle the epidemic, but not the police. The Palantir product "Gotham," named after the city where the superhero Batman battles crime, has been in use in German city Hesse under the name "Hessendata" since 2018.
With the application, all data kept by the Hessian police is connected, and personal profiles with linkages are built. They can learn everything they need to know about a person in a matter of seconds.
Work on the database, which will be termed "Vera" in Bavaria - an acronym for "cross-procedure research and analysis system" - has been delayed. The Bavarian police intend to use it to combat major crime and terrorism. The most recent status is: The source code was checked by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology.
People in Ukraine, on the other hand, have a different perspective. "It's all about survival for us," a Ukrainian military told a Washington Post reporter. He had him show the technology on-site. For example, realistic computerized maps of the Bakhmut battleground in eastern Ukraine, featuring rough trenches, were projected on a screen. A mouse click reveals thermal photos of Russian and Ukrainian artillery fire.
The soldier might have now chosen a drone to target the Russian locations seen on the screen. According to the officer, the attack would be validated and a damage estimate would be relayed back into the system. Their ultimate objective is to "maximize target acquisition."