The price of using Palantir

Imposing compulsory military service, developing artificial intelligence-driven weapons without getting bogged down in "theatrical debates", the superiority of the United States over other countries, the belief that some cultures are superior to others and must be defended... These are some of the ideological foundations of the company Palantir that its co-founder, Alex Karp, details in the book The technological republic (in Spanish, published by Tenos). The military technology multinational that Karp created with Peter Thiel has been built on these foundations, which align with its name. Palantir has a political agenda and, while making money, works to expand and promote it.

In the world of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, palantirs are seeing stones, spheres that allow one to see distant places and events and communicate over distances. They are ideal for spying and very powerful communication tools in a fantasy world without current technology. But what is especially revealing about the name Karp and Thiel chose for their company is that, in Tolkien's books, Sauron uses the palantirs to manipulate, influence, and corrupt from afar. The Dark Lord uses the palantirs as another weapon in his war to subjugate all creatures of Middle-earth to his will.

Alex Karp's book, which Palantir has spent this week summarizing in an extensive tweet, has become the manifesto of the military technology and cybersecurity multinational. And Palantir applies it when it participates in operations such as the persecution of immigrants in the United States by ICE, the wars in Iran and Ukraine, and the coup in Venezuela, for example. Journalist Olivier Tesquet, author of Apocalypse nerds, explains that Palantir is deeply established in Europe. French, British, and German administrations have signed contracts with it. And in this newspaper, we explain that the Spanish Ministry of Defense has already signed two contracts.

Palantir helps intelligence services monitor the population by crossing large volumes of data and chooses military targets using artificial intelligence for warring armies. And at the same time, as Tesquet explains, it is an extension of the Trump administration that creates dependence in governments that use it. Alex Karp's manifesto has made it clear that Palantir does all this with a clear idea: there are cultures that are worth more than others and that must be defended.

In The Lord of the Rings, when a foolish hobbit makes the mistake of looking directly into a palantir, they become trapped, mesmerized by the eye of Sauron. Even a powerful wizard, Saruman, falls in the same way into the clutches of the Dark Lord and becomes his servant. Karp and Thiel's Palantir has the same effect on governments that become captivated by the technology it offers. But Tolkien already warned that there is a price to pay for such power, and he wasn't talking about money. Europe must reconsider whether it is worth paying it.