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these technologies,” he told the audience at the Web Summit in Lisbon. The real enemies are China and Russia, both of which have invested in AI military technology.
China is not only investing in AI, but has unfair advantages to develop the technology using its entire population as a data training set through use of mass surveillance to run experiments. In contrast, Luckey told Defense and Aerospace Report, the U.S. can train its AI software “in industry, in enterprise, in national security.” The U.S., Luckey went on, could test AI “using our current military advantage to train future AI developments and we need to start using our current military advantage.” He called for employing these technologies in ongoing “large-scale conflicts” around the world.
Asked in Lisbon about a digital Geneva Convention or another ethical rulebook to govern the use of AI weaponry, Luckey was forthright in his rejection of the idea.
“That’s not really going to solve the problem,” he said. “I have no hopes that a digital Geneva Convention, whatever it will be, will prevent China from using surveillance tools to watch every citizen in their country. I have very little confidence that it will prevent Russia from building autonomous systems that can acquire and fire on targets without any kind of human intervention whatsoever.”
Ethics experts have criticized the development of AI-based weapons, noting that the lethal autonomous weapons could be hijacked by hackers, kill without clear explanation, or lead to catastrophic accidental conflict if weapons are used as escalation in response to an incident that appears to be an act of war. Moreover, as humans are removed from face-to-face combat, the dehumanization of lethal decisions could lead to more killing.
Luckey hasn’t proffered any direct answers to the questions being raised over the use of artificial intelligence in warfighting. Anduril, however, has stated that it will not sell to Russia or China, but would be willing to sell its products to U.S. allies. A request for comment about whether the company would sell to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or other undemocratic U.S. allies was not returned.
Among the many Palantir alumni who joined Anduril, one name sticks out to those concerned with abuse of civil liberties and human rights. In May of last year, the firm hired former Palantir executive Matthew Steckman.
Steckman took a lead role in the HBGary Federal scandal in 2011. In the scandal, a cache of hacked emails showed that Palantir and two other defense contractors had cooked up a plot to spy on journalists, trade unions, and activists on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest pro-business lobby in America. The plot included hacking target computers and using social media analysis to monitor the behaviors of a large set of left-leaning figures and journalists viewed as sympathetic to Wikileaks, including The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald. In negotiations with the Chamber’s law firm, Steckman wrote at the time that he and another Palantir executive were “spearheading this from the Palantir side.”
After the plan was revealed, Palantir briefly placed Steckman on leave. He is now at work as head of corporate and government affairs at Anduril.
One thing is clear: Luckey wants to win — in every way imaginable. The U.S.’s goal, Luckey said at the Web Summit, should be dominance and beating other foreign adversaries to control the best artificial intelligence technology. “You have to be the leader,” he said. “Technological superiority is a prerequisite for ethical superiority.”
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