Palantir Technologies is, let's say, a technology company with an ideology (other technology companies also have an ideology, but they hide it more). Ultraconservative, naturally. Palantir is dedicated to the analysis of massive data, or big data. It provides services to governments and also to large companies such as Airbus, Panasonic, Merck, and others. It is valued at 380 billion dollars, was founded in 2004, and its name refers to the magic stones that appear in the novel The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (which you can read in Catalan, by the way, in the excellent translation by Francesc Parcerisas). Its two most visible leaders are Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, two singular gentlemen. Thiel, a German citizen naturalized American who was also a co-founder of PayPal, is an ultracapitalist shark, specializing in venture capital funds. His theory is that democracy is incompatible with freedom; if not with economic freedom. Thiel is a money supremacist above all other values.Alex Karp, for his part, comes from the humanities: he is the son of a progressive Californian family, studied philosophy in Germany, and was a disciple of Jürgen Habermas, the philosopher defender of democracy. He is fascinated by literature and adores The Lord of the Rings: despite these characteristics, or precisely because of them, Thiel saw in Karp (they had met, when young, at Stanford University) someone who understood Palantir's idea better than anyone, and that is why he pushed him to become the company's CEO. Palantir's idea: to dominate the world through the data generated on the internet (about 400 million terabytes a day) and artificial intelligence. Karp explains it in a book he published last year, The Technological Republic, which is considered the company's manifesto. Karp says that the era of atomic deterrence is ending and a new era is emerging, that of deterrence based on artificial intelligence. Karp considers this deterrence essential to protect Western values (he no longer speaks of democracy, but of a "lifestyle" that must be safeguarded). Palantir is dedicated to this.Karp does not hide, rather the opposite, his company's close collaboration with the governments of the USA and Israel. Palantir's programs are behind operations such as the detention of Maduro or the start of the ongoing war in Iran and the Middle East. He does not believe it is Palantir's place to define the limits of the use of its programs. He leaves that to the clients: the CIA, the FBI, the Mossad, or even the American ICE. Palantir also works with other governments such as those of Canada, France, Germany, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, or Saudi Arabia. Or Spain, which in 2023 awarded it a contract from the Ministry of Defense for 16.5 million euros, with the task of implementing military intelligence software named Gotham. Yes, it is the name of the city where Batman lived. Yes, the future is in the hands of highly dysfunctional people.

Entangled with the banner of “patriotic technology”, a series of companies are redefining strategic order, conventional warfare, and even the sovereignty of states. The line between civilian and military, and between the public and private power of these technological oligarchies, is becoming increasingly blurred. The controversial manifesto from Palantir – Peter Thiel’s company turned data management giant for military use –, published on X, announces a new era of AI-based deterrence. In reality, what it is building is an empire of new technological vulnerabilities and rights in favor of the power and software of Silicon Valley giants.

"The atomic age, an age of deterrence, is ending, and a new age of deterrence based on artificial intelligence is about to begin." This sentence is part of the extensive tweet that the multinational military technology and cybersecurity company Palantir published this week. A tweet that is actually a kind of manifesto in which the company details its ideology: to impose mandatory military service, to develop artificial intelligence-powered weapons without getting bogged down in "theatrical debates", the superiority of the United States over other countries, or the belief that some cultures are superior to others. An ideology that Palantir applies when it participates in operations such as the persecution of immigrants in the United States by ICE, the wars in Iran and Ukraine, or the coup in Venezuela. In short, it is a notice to mariners and a warning that the rules of the game are changing. Whoever controls artificial intelligence can now control the world.

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.

Palantir is a company known to all those who operate in the field of defense and artificial intelligence (AI). However, until now it has had little presence in public debate, despite being present in the United States and, according to consulted experts, having contracts with a good part of European governments. Also with the Spanish executive: the Ministry of Defense has at least two contracts with the Spanish subsidiary, which began to operate with a physical office in Spain in 2022, despite some reports already registering activity since 2018.

It works like Google Maps. You open the app and a map appears that allows you to identify "target-rich" environments. When the user taps on one of the marked points, information about the person appears: name, photo, date of birth, and a special number assigned by the government.

Many analysts see similarities between the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) investments and what happened in 2000 with the .comAfter a period of euphoria and rising prices, the bubble burst. .comThese were the years when the internet was becoming increasingly popular. Companies received millions in stock market investments without it being clear whether they would ultimately reap the expected profits. Many disappeared when the bubble burst, when expectations spiraled out of control and a recession hit, bringing things back down to earth. Others, like Amazon or eBay, for example, after a period of losses, ended up becoming tech giants. Now many analysts see parallels. And with the fear that, in the event of a crisis, the economic impact will be much greater than before. In fact, just one of the companies involved, Nvidia, is worth on the stock market today the equivalent of everything that was lost in that crisis.

Michael Burry tweets infrequently, speaks even less, and is rarely seen in public, but when he does, it's for a reason. And this week he decided to make his stance against artificial intelligence public.