Alex Karp, the CEO of the controversial navy tech agency Palantir, is the coauthor of a brand new guide, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. In it, he requires a renewed sense of nationwide function and even better cooperation between authorities and the tech sector. His guide is, the truth is, not simply an account of how you can spur technological innovation, however a distinctly ideological tract.
As a begin, Karp roundly criticizes Silicon Valley’s give attention to consumer-oriented merchandise and occasions like video-sharing apps, on-line purchasing, and social media platforms, which he dismisses as “the slim and the trivial.” His focus as an alternative is on what he likes to think about as modern big-tech tasks of better social and political consequence. He argues, the truth is, that Individuals face “a second of reckoning” wherein we should determine “what is that this nation, and for what can we stand?” And within the course of, he makes all of it too clear simply the place he stands — in sturdy assist of what can solely be thought of a brand new world technological arms race, fueled by shut collaboration between authorities and business, and designed to protect America’s “fragile geopolitical benefit over our adversaries.”
Karp believes that making use of American technological experience to constructing next-generation weapons programs isn’t just a however the real path to nationwide salvation, and he advocates a revival of the idea of “the West” as foundational for future freedom and collective identification. As Sophie Hurwitz of Mom Jones noted recently, Karp summarized this view in a letter to Palantir shareholders wherein he claimed that the rise of the West wasn’t as a result of “the prevalence of its concepts or values or faith… however reasonably by its superiority in making use of organized violence.”
Depend on one factor: Karp’s method, if adopted, will yield billions of taxpayer {dollars} for Palantir and its militarized Silicon Valley cohorts of their seek for AI weaponry that they see as the trendy equal of nuclear weapons and the important thing to beating China, America’s present nice energy rival.
Militarism as a Unifying Power
Karp could also be proper that this nation desperately wants a brand new nationwide function, however his proposed answer is, to place it politely, dangerously misguided.
Ominously sufficient, one in every of his major examples of a unifying initiative price emulating is World Warfare II’s Manhattan Venture, which produced the primary atomic bombs. He sees the constructing of these bombs as each a supreme technological achievement and a deep supply of nationwide delight, whereas conveniently ignoring their world-ending potential. And he proposes embarking on a comparable effort within the realm of rising navy applied sciences:
“The USA and its allies overseas ought to directly decide to launching a brand new Manhattan Venture with the intention to retain unique management of probably the most subtle types of AI for the battlefield — the concentrating on programs and swarms of drones and robots that can turn out to be probably the most highly effective weapons of the century.”
And right here’s a query he merely skips: How precisely will the USA and its allies “retain unique management” of no matter subtle new navy applied sciences they develop? In any case, his name for an American AI buildup echoes the views expressed by opponents of the worldwide management of nuclear know-how within the wake of the devastating atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World Warfare II — the futile perception that the USA might preserve a everlasting benefit that may cement its function because the world’s dominant navy energy. Almost 80 years later, we proceed to reside with an enormously costly nuclear arms race — nine countries now possess such weaponry — wherein a devastating war has been prevented as a lot due to luck as design. In the meantime, previous predictions of everlasting American nuclear superiority have confirmed to be wishful pondering. Equally, there’s no cause to imagine that predictions of everlasting superiority in AI-driven weaponry will show any extra correct or that our world shall be any safer.
Know-how Will Not Save Us
Karp’s views are in sync along with his fellow Silicon Valley militarists, from Palantir founder Peter Thiel to Palmer Luckey of the up-and-coming navy tech agency Anduril to America’s digital co-president, SpaceX’s Elon Musk. All of them are satisfied that, at some future second, by supplanting old-school company weapons makers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, they’ll usher in a golden age of American world primacy grounded in ever higher know-how. They see themselves as superior beings who can save this nation and the world, if solely the federal government — and in the end, democracy itself — would get out of their means. Not surprisingly, their disdain for presidency doesn’t lengthen to a refusal to just accept billions and billions of {dollars} in federal contracts. Their anti-government ideology, in fact, is a part of what’s motivated Musk’s drive to attempt to dismantle important elements of the federal authorities, allegedly within the identify of “effectivity.”
An precise effectivity drive would contain a cautious evaluation of what works and what doesn’t, which applications are important and which aren’t, not an across-the-board, sledgehammer method of the type not too long ago used to destroy the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID), to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of individuals world wide who relied on its applications for entry to meals, clear water, and well being care, together with measures to forestall the unfold of HIV-AIDS. Inner company memos launched to the press earlier this month indicated that, absent USAID help, as much as 166,000 youngsters might die of malaria, 200,000 could possibly be paralyzed with polio, and one million of them wouldn’t be handled for acute malnutrition. Along with saving lives, USAID’s applications solid America’s picture on this planet in a much better mild than does a slim reliance on its sprawling navy footprint and undue resort to threats of pressure as pillars of its overseas coverage.
As a navy proposition, the concept swarms of drones and robotic programs will show to be the brand new “miracle weapons,” making certain American world dominance, contradicts an extended historical past of such claims. From the “electronic battlefield” in Vietnam to President Ronald Reagan’s quest for an impenetrable “Star Wars” protect towards nuclear missiles to the Gulf Warfare’s “Revolution in Military Affairs” (centered on networked warfare and supposedly precision-guided munitions), expressions of religion in superior know-how as the way in which to win wars and bolster American energy globally have been misplaced. Both the know-how didn’t work as marketed, adversaries got here up with low cost, efficient countermeasures, or the wars being fought had been determined by components like morale and data of the native tradition and terrain, not technological marvels. And rely on this: AI weaponry will fare no higher than these previous “miracles.”
To begin with, there isn’t a assure that weapons based mostly on immensely advanced software program received’t undergo catastrophic failure in precise conflict circumstances, with the added threat, as navy analyst Michael Klare has pointed out, of beginning pointless conflicts or inflicting unintended mass slaughter.
Second, Karp’s dream of “unique management” of such programs by the U.S. and its allies is simply that — a dream. China, as an illustration, has ample assets and technical expertise to hitch an AI arms race, with unsure outcomes by way of the worldwide steadiness of energy or the chance of a disastrous U.S.-China battle.
Third, regardless of Pentagon pledges that there’ll all the time be a “human being within the loop” in the usage of AI-driven weaponry, the drive to wipe out enemy targets as shortly as doable will create monumental strain to let the software program, not human operators, make the selections. As Biden administration Air Power Secretary Frank Kendall put it, “When you’ve got a human within the loop, you’ll lose.”
Automated weapons will pose tremendous risks of better civilian casualties and, as a result of such conflicts could possibly be waged with out placing massive numbers of navy personnel in danger, might solely improve the motivation to resort to conflict, whatever the penalties for civilian populations.
What Ought to America Stand For?
Know-how is one factor. What it’s used for, and why, is one other matter. And Karp’s imaginative and prescient of its function appears deeply immoral. Essentially the most damning real-world instance of the values Karp seeks to advertise could be seen in his unwavering assist for Israel’s genocidal conflict on Gaza. Not solely had been Palantir’s programs used to accelerate the pace of the Israeli Protection Power’s murderous bombing marketing campaign there, however Karp himself has been probably the most vocal supporters of the Israeli conflict effort. He went as far as to hold a Palantir board assembly in Israel just some months into the Gaza conflict in an effort to goad different company leaders into publicly supporting Israel’s marketing campaign of mass killing.
Are these actually the values Individuals wish to embrace? And given his stance, is Karp in any place to lecture Individuals on values and nationwide priorities, a lot much less how you can defend them?
Although his firm is within the enterprise of enabling devastating conflicts, his personal twisted logic leads Karp to consider that Palantir and the military-tech sector are on the aspect of the angels. In Might 2024, on the “AI Expo for Nationwide Competitiveness,” he said of the student-encampment motion for a ceasefire in Gaza, “The peace activists are conflict activists. We’re the peace activists.”
Invasion of the Techno-Optimists
And, in fact, Karp is something however alone in selling a brand new tech-driven arms race. Elon Musk, who has been empowered to take a sledgehammer to massive elements of the U.S. authorities and vacuum up delicate private details about hundreds of thousands of Individuals, can be a major supplier of navy know-how to the Pentagon. And Vice President J.D. Vance, Silicon Valley’s man within the White Home, was employed, mentored, and financed by Palantir founder Peter Thiel earlier than becoming a member of the Trump administration.
The grip of the military-tech sector on the Trump administration is nearly unprecedented within the annals of influence-peddling, starting with Elon Musk’s funding of an unprecedented $277 million in assist of electing Donald Trump and Republican candidates for Congress in 2024. His affect then carried over into the presidential transition interval, when he was consulted about all method of budgetary and organizational points, whereas rising tech gurus like Marc Andreessen of the enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz grew to become concerned in interviewing candidates for delicate positions on the Pentagon. At present, the determine who’s second-in-charge on the Pentagon, Stephen Feinberg of Cerberus Capital, has an extended historical past of investing in navy corporations, together with the rising tech sector.
However by far the best type of affect is Musk’s wielding of the basically self-created Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) to determine the destiny of federal companies, applications, and staff, even supposing he has neither been elected to any place, nor even confirmed by Congress, and that he now wields extra energy than all of Trump’s cupboard members mixed.
As Alex Karp noted — no shock right here, in fact — in a February 2025 name with Palantir traders, he’s an enormous fan of the DOGE, even when some folks get harm alongside the way in which:
“We love disruption, and no matter’s good for America shall be good for Individuals and superb for Palantir. Disruption, on the finish of the day, exposes issues that aren’t working. There shall be ups and downs. There’s a revolution. Some individuals are going to get their heads reduce off. We’re anticipating to see actually sudden issues and to win.”
Whilst Musk disrupts and destroys civilian authorities companies, some critics of Pentagon overspending maintain out hope that no less than he’ll put his budget-cutting expertise to work on that bloated company. However to date the plan there may be merely to shift cash throughout the division, not scale back its near-trillion-dollar prime line. And if something is trimmed, it’s prone to contain reductions in civilian personnel, not decrease spending on creating and constructing weaponry, which is the place corporations like Palantir make their cash. Musk’s harsh critique of current programs like Lockheed’s F-35 jet fighter — which he described as “the worst navy worth for cash in historical past” — is counterbalanced by his need to get the Pentagon to spend much more on drones and different programs based mostly on rising (notably AI) applied sciences.
In fact, any concepts about ditching older weapons programs will run up towards fierce resistance in Congress, the place jobs, revenues, marketing campaign contributions, and armies of well-connected lobbyists create a firewall towards decreasing spending on current applications, whether or not they have a helpful function to play or not. And no matter DOGE suggests, Congress can have the final phrase. Key gamers like Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) have already revived the Reaganite slogan of “peace through strength” to push for a rise of — no, this isn’t a misprint! — $150 billion within the Pentagon’s already staggering funds over the following 4 years.
What Ought to Our Nationwide Objective Be?
Karp and his Silicon Valley colleagues are proposing a world wherein government-subsidized navy know-how restores American world dominance and offers us a way of renewed nationwide function. It’s, the truth is, a remarkably impoverished imaginative and prescient of what the USA ought to stand for at this second in historical past when non-military challenges like illness, local weather change, racial and financial injustice, resurgent authoritarianism, and rising neofascist actions pose better risks than conventional navy threats.
Know-how has its place, however why not put our greatest technical minds to work creating inexpensive options to fossil fuels, a public well being system centered on the prevention of pandemics and different main outbreaks of illness, and an academic system that prepares college students to be engaged residents, not simply cogs in an financial machine?
Reaching such objectives would require reforming and even remodeling our democracy — or what’s left of it — in order that the enter of the general public really made much more of a distinction, and management served the general public curiosity, not its personal financial pursuits. As well as, authorities coverage would now not be distorted to satisfy the emotional wants of narcissistic demagogues, or to fulfill the needs of delusional tech moguls.
By all means, let’s unite round a standard function. However that function shouldn’t be a supposedly extra environment friendly option to construct killing machines within the service of an outmoded quest for world dominance. Karp’s dream of a “technological republic” armed along with his AI weaponry could be one lengthy nightmare for the remainder of us.
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