Former Palantir [technology] workers condemn company's work with Trump administration [View all]

Interesting that Musk hired some tech workers from this company.



Former Palantir workers condemn company's work with Trump administration


May 5, 20255:05 PM ET Bobby Allyn 2-Minute Listen



Thirteen former employees of influential data-mining firm Palantir are condemning the company's work with the Trump administration weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached a deal to pay Palantir $30 million to provide the agency with "near real-time visibility" into the movement of migrants in the U.S.

In a letter shared exclusively with NPR, the ex-Palantir workers, former software engineers, managers and an employee who worked with the firm's privacy and civil liberties team, say when they joined the powerful tech company, they believed in its code of conduct stating that its software should protect the vulnerable and ensure the responsible development of artificial intelligence.


"Early Palantirians understood the ethical weight of building these technologies," the thirteen former employees wrote in the letter. "These principles have now been violated, and are rapidly being dismantled at Palantir Technologies and across Silicon Valley."

......

Palantir, co-founded by Trump ally billionaire Peter Thiel, offers data-analyzing software that uses AI to pull information from a multitude of sources and compiles it into charts, tables and heat maps. Its ability to disentangle complex datasets has made its platforms popular with law enforcement and the military. ..................

The letter also zeros in on Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team,
which has hired a number of former Palantir employees to assist in slashing and burning
the federal government..................................................