Palantir employee: "Thanks to the data from Gaza, we got rich"

Yanis Varoufakis 1:58

Palantir TechnologiesArtificial intelligence and data extractionGaza bombardment and displacementAI training datasetsNHS procurement

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This account describes a direct conversation between the speaker and a Palantir employee at a post-conference dinner in which the employee explained how intensive bombardment of densely populated areas in Gaza generated large volumes of mobile phone and movement data. According to the employee's account, this data—generated by displaced and panicked populations during intense military operations—was used to train an artificial intelligence agent designed to manage chaos and panic in emergency medical settings. The employee stated that Palantir subsequently sold this AI system to the British National Health Service (NHS) for £1 billion sterling (approximately $1.4 billion USD). The employee framed the extraction of this data as a beneficial outcome of the bombardment, describing it as creating a 'debt of gratitude' to Gaza. The speaker, disturbed by the implications of using casualty and displacement data from Gaza to develop commercial AI products, has since verified aspects of the transaction and shared this account publicly.

Key Points

A Palantir employee disclosed at a dinner conversation that the company trained artificial intelligence systems using movement and behavioral data extracted from casualties and displaced persons during intense bombardment in Gaza, then sold the resulting AI system to the British National Health Service for approximately $1.4 billion.

Summary

This account describes a direct conversation between the speaker and a Palantir employee at a post-conference dinner in which the employee explained how intensive bombardment of densely populated areas in Gaza generated large volumes of mobile phone and movement data. According to the employee's account, this data—generated by displaced and panicked populations during intense military operations—was used to train an artificial intelligence agent designed to manage chaos and panic in emergency medical settings. The employee stated that Palantir subsequently sold this AI system to the British National Health Service (NHS) for £1 billion sterling (approximately $1.4 billion USD). The employee framed the extraction of this data as a beneficial outcome of the bombardment, describing it as creating a 'debt of gratitude' to Gaza. The speaker, disturbed by the implications of using casualty and displacement data from Gaza to develop commercial AI products, has since verified aspects of the transaction and shared this account publicly.

Key takeaways

According to the Palantir employee, intensive bombardment of densely populated areas in Gaza generated movement and mobile phone data used to train an AI system.
The employee stated that civilians' movement patterns during displacement and panic—generated by intense bombardment—provided the training dataset for the AI agent.
Palantir sold an AI system trained on this data to the British National Health Service for £1 billion sterling (approximately $1.4 billion USD).
The AI system is designed to manage panic and chaos in emergency medical settings by creating order during mass casualty scenarios.
The Palantir employee described Gaza as the source of valuable training data, framing the intense bombardment as generating a commercial and strategic asset.
The speaker has verified that Palantir completed a major transaction with the NHS involving an AI system, though the specific origin of the training data remains the employee's stated account.

Full article

A Dinner Conversation on Data and Gaza

I want to tell you a story that I've been sharing over the last few months, because nothing has disgusted and excited me as much as a conversation I had with a certain gentleman at a dinner table. This was after a conference. I was seated next to a man from Cisco on my left, and another man I didn't initially pay much attention to. I was discussing quantum computing with the Cisco representative when a wealthy Qatari gentleman from across the table thanked me for my work against genocide and in support of the Palestinian people. The man sitting next to me, whose name and employer I didn't know at that moment, then said: "Gaza, Gaza. We owe such a huge debt of gratitude to Gaza."

I asked him who he was. He replied that he worked for Palantir. I then asked him directly: "So you owe whom exactly what? You seem to be enjoying the fact that tens of thousands of children died, were killed there." He said no, that was terrible, it was terrible. But then he pointed at my phone, which was on the dinner table. He said: "You see your phone? It is useless to me because it is stationary. When your phone is stationary, it's not moving. It doesn't produce data that I can use. But if you bombard a densely populated area intensely, people move a lot with their phones—those who don't get killed."

Data Extraction and AI Development

He was very cynical but also quite pleasant during dinner. He explained that the movement and data generated from such intense bombardment of populated areas created so much data that they were able to train an AI agent, which they subsequently sold. I checked and confirmed that Palantir had sold this AI system for £1 billion sterling—approximately $1.4 billion—to the British National Health Service. When I asked what exactly this AI was, he explained: "Let's say you're in Manchester and Birmingham and there is a pileup at the motorway, and ten or fifteen ambulances arrive at the hospital. There's panic among the nurses and doctors. We have AI that helps them create some order out of the chaos of panic. We trained that anti-panic AI using the panic imprint from Gaza."

Topics#Palantir Technologies#Artificial intelligence and data extraction#Gaza bombardment and displacement#AI training datasets#NHS procurement#Mass casualty data#Algorithmic accountability

Transcript

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0:00 And here I'm going to tell you a story.

0:01 It's a story that I keep telling in the last few months, because nothing has disgusted me and excited me as much as that conversation I had with a certain gentleman who was sitting on my right at a dinner table.

0:11 At the dinner after the conference, I was sat next to a guy from Cisco on my left, and another guy that I didn't pay much attention to initially, and I was chatting with a guy from Cisco about quantum computing.

0:20 And then at some point a gentleman, a Qatari from the opposite side of the table, a very rich man.

0:27 But nevertheless, he thanked me for the work I've been doing against genocide in support of the Palestinian people.

0:32 And the guy next to me who I didn't know.

0:34 I didn't know who he was, you know, his name, whom he worked for.

0:36 He said, Gaza, Gaza.

0:39 We owe such a huge debt of gratitude to Gaza.

0:41 And I said, who are you?

0:42 And he said, oh, I work for Palantir.

0:44 And I said to him, well, so you owe whom exactly what?

0:49 You seem to be enjoying the fact that tens of thousands of children died, were killed there.

0:52 He said, no, no, no, no, no, that was terrible.

0:54 It was terrible.

0:54 But and then he pointed at my phone.

0:55 I had my phone on the desk, on the desk, on the dinner table.

0:58 He said, you see your phone?

1:00 It is useless to me because it is stationary.

1:02 When your phone is stationary, it's not moving.

1:03 It doesn't produce data that I can use.

1:05 But if you bombard a densely populated area intensely, people move a lot with their phones.

1:10 Those who don't get killed.

1:11 He said he was very cynical, but also quite pleasant.

1:14 You know, during dinner.

1:15 And he said, so that created so much data for us that we managed to train our AI, that they want a particular agent, AI agent, which we sold.

1:24 And then I checked and it was confirmed.

1:26 We sold for £1 billion sterling, right?

1:30 That's $1.4 billion to the British public National Health Service.

1:35 And I said, what the hell was that piece of AI?

1:38 What did you sell him?

1:38 He said, you know, when when, let's say you're in Manchester and Birmingham and there is a pileup at the motorway and, you know, ten, 15 ambulances arrive at the hospital.

1:44 There's panic among the nurses, the doctors and so on.

1:46 So we have AI that helps them create some order out of the chaos of panic.

1:49 And we trained that anti-panic AI using the panic of the panic imprint.

1:54 This was expression from Gaza.

1:57 I think that answers your question.

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