How Peter Thiel-Linked Tech is Fueling the Ukraine War

October 13, 2023

As war in Ukraine continues, controversial defense contractors and adjacent companies like Palantir, Anduril, and Clearview AI are taking advantage to develop and level-up controversial AI-driven weapons systems and surveillance technologies. These organizations’ common link? The support of the controversial, yet ever-more powerful Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.

by Stavroula Pabst Unlimited Hangout

“A reluctance to grapple with the often grim reality of an ongoing geopolitical struggle for power poses its own danger. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. This is an arms race of a different kind, and it has begun.” – Alex Karp, Palantir CEO

These were the recent words of Palantir CEO Alex Karp, proclaiming in the New York Times that the world has entered a new era of warfare with the rapid acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Playing on the recent release of the “Oppenheimer” movie by comparing the dawn of AI with the development of the atomic bomb, Karp argued that the growing role of AI in weapons systems has become “our Oppenheimer moment.”