It’s not that the American military-industrial complex and Silicon Valley haven’t had deep ties in recent decades. But it is the first time that these have come to light, they involve the main technology multinationals and neither their users nor their workers act to prevent it. The business of artificial intelligence (AI) and the geopolitical panorama have opened a new scenario for digital giants and arms companies.
Until now, contracts between the military sector and Silicon Valley were handled discreetly. That trend has been broken with an official announcement from Meta. “We make Llama available to US government agencies and contractors working on national security applications,” revealed Nick Clegg, former British deputy prime minister who now acts as head of public policy for the multinational.
“Responsible uses of open source AI models promote global security and help place the US in the global race for leadership in AI,” insisted the former Liberal Democrat politician, signed by Meta in 2018 after losing his seat in the House of Commons.
Llama is the ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence developed by Meta. It is currently not available in Europe, unilaterally blocked by the multinational after refusing to offer its EU users a clear and simple option to prevent their data from being used in their training. In the rest of the world it is available at no cost to Facebook and Instagram members.
Meta had traditionally prohibited its products from being used for weapons purposes. Most AI developers included similar provisions in their terms and conditions, until OpenAI removed that paragraph from its policies earlier this year. Unlike Meta, Sam Altman’s team did not announce the change. The months of advantage have helped OpenAI to win the first military contract from its competition.
The same day that Meta announced the policy change, OpenAI published that it has reached an agreement with the US Air Force to transfer technology to it. “Now is the time to give our Airmen the flexibility to develop the necessary skills in parallel. There are multiple modernization efforts underway right now across the federal government and within the Air Force to put tools in the hands of the workforce. This tool is another of those efforts,” declared the head of Information of the body about the use of AI.
It is not the only force in the country that has signed contracts with the organization led by Altman. According to the medium The Interceptwho has had access to a AFRICOM internal documentthe command of the US military force deployed in Africa, considers OpenAI technology to be “essential” to its mission. Although the purchase price appears redacted in the text, other references throughout the document indicate that it would not exceed $15 million.
The Palantir example
The list continues with Anthropic, a company funded by Amazon and Google that develops Claude, another AI virtual assistant. In its case, it has signed a triple alliance with Amazon and Palantir so that the US intelligence services can use its technology. It will be used in missions such as “helping US officials make more informed decisions in urgent situations, while preserving their decision-making powers,” the three companies reported.
The evolution of Palantir’s role within Silicon Valley is an example of how Big Tech’s relationship with the military industry has changed. Palantir was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor, and has been leveraging data from that and other social networks for nearly two decades to deliver data intelligence technology, targeting, and risk pattern detection.
Although it is easy to find Palantir products in all countries in the Western orbit, from the US, through Spain or its “special” relations with Israel and its operations in Gaza, until now it was one of the companies that acted most in the shadow of all Silicon Valley. He was an isolated and controversial actor with whom other companies tended to refuse to associate. Even Thiel’s role at Facebook was routinely hidden in the company’s public historiography.
Now that has changed. Palantir and its military businesses are considered comparable to theirs by many technology companies that seek to fish in the business of technological weapons sellers. Also its executives. In October, OpenAI announced that it had hired one of its security chiefs. “Allowing democratic institutions to make the most of these technologies and promoting the development of safe artificial intelligence for the world” will be its main objectives, declared the manager.
Silent contracts
Before the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the increase in tension between the US and China over Taiwan, these types of movements received strong internal opposition from technology company employees. Ratifying one of these agreements meant exposing oneself to the workers exposing it and boycotting the public relations discourse of the companies, which wanted to be associated with pacifism and progress.
Google has suffered several of these riots. The most notable occurred in 2018 for Project Maven, a plan by the US Department of Defense to use AI to analyze drone images and select targets. Employees then organized protests and sent a public letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to highlight how this type of behavior contradicted the company’s culture.
“We cannot outsource the moral responsibility for our technologies to third parties. Google’s stated values make it clear: each of our users trusts us. Never risk that. Never. This contract puts Google’s reputation at risk and is in direct opposition to our core values. “It is not acceptable to develop this technology and assist the US government in military surveillance, with potentially lethal results,” they denounced. in his letter.
None of that has happened with these latest announcements. “Nowadays, all employee activism dies down long before it can escalate within companies like Google, Microsoft or Amazon,” said Michael Spencer, an analyst specializing in the ins and outs of Silicon Valley who closely followed those protests.
“Big tech and cloud computing leaders are increasingly working with the Pentagon, and not just on cybersecurity. As I warned the Pentagon people involved in the Maven project all those years ago, this trend will only intensify. Now that those people retired a while ago, it has already intensified and will continue unabated,” Spencer anticipates.
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