Ross Douthat’s Interesting Times podcast is a must-listen, and I think the best use for Ross is the Times‘ podcast stable. This week, he interviewed Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer at Palantir, the Peter Thiel-founded defense contractor, named after the seeing stones in Lord of the Rings.
I’ve rarely been so impressed by an interview subject. From normal press accounts I’ve never had a clear idea what Palantir does, or how it does it. Something to do with data and the government. Sankar explains how Palantir builds software that allows the government (or any other client) to see, connect, and interpret all the data it already has, and facilitates making decisions on that data. It does so because it was founded with the intention of helping the West defend itself from threats.
In answering Ross’s probing questions, Sankar showed that the company has values that aren’t reducible to maximizing profit. After all, Palantir raised eyebrows recently by turning down the government of the United Kingdom on a contract to help build digital ID for British subjects. Palantir deemed it undemocratic. From the Times of London:
Palantir Technologies, which has contracts with intelligence agencies, police and the Ministry of Defence, said it would not be participating in the scheme and warned it was a “programme that needs to be decided at the ballot box”. The US-based company had been touted as a potential bidder as it specialises in managing vast amounts of data from different sources.
It also has contracts with the NHS to help it manage patient care. Last month, it announced plans to invest up to £1.5 billion in its UK operations.
Douthat was quite right to dwell on this necessarily political consideration. By the very end of the interview, which I won’t spoil, Ross begins asking insistently about the idea of replacing human decision making with AI and other data-technology. I was surprised and, honestly, infused with hope by the adamantine skepticism of Sankar about “replacing” humans.