Tech Companies Turned Ukraine Into an AI War Lab | TIME details the fight in Ukraine and how Palantir specifically has used it as a testing ground for its digital surveillance and weaponry .
Obviously war profits defense contractors. This isn’t anything new.
And putting aside beliefs about the war itself, I see the angle here as somewhat inauthentic. It assumes tech is somehow awful.
Arms dealers will always be in the race for selling more arms, whether in peace or in war. But providing services at a discounted rate to defend an invaded ally seems reasonable.
My point: I wish we had more positive tech news. Tech is how we won WWII and almost how we lost it. That same awful WWII tech is how we now power homes with cleaner energy across the world. Some argue it’s how we’ve avoided a WWIII so far because it’s a nuclear war is an unwinnable war.
Tech cannot control the hearts of the men and women who wield it. It can only enable them. May we all strive for wars of words and code not wars of people or weapons, and I actually think tech helps enable that. And hopefully, we can use tech to facilitate misunderstandings and bring people to better diplomacy, ending the need for war. But that’s up to the leaders. Desires for war rage within hearts long before those desires rage within bullets.
As for the main stream media, I’d hope for more nuanced discussions around the uses of tech. Perhaps that’s what it’s alluding to - that war mongers are being fueled by this war.
But then let’s get more diplomatic leaders into office that can manage peace talks. It’s a people problem. Our government shouldn’t be run by the war machine, but by the people. And tech will always enable the people to do what they do best: be human.
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Bryan lives somewhere at the intersection of faith, fatherhood, and futurism and writes about tech, books, Christianity, gratitude, and whatever’s on his mind. If you liked reading, perhaps you’ll also like subscribing: