'One of The Scariest Things I Have Seen': Alarms Sound Over 'Technofascist' Palantir Manifesto

Scholars on authoritarianism are expressing alarm after tech company Palantir posted a 22-point manifesto that they say espouses a "technofascist" doctrine.

The Palantir manifesto is based on the book The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, written by Alex Karp, co-founder and CEO of Palantir, and Nicholas Zamiska, head of corporate affairs and legal counsel to the office of the CEO at Palantir.

Among other things, the manifesto hails the creation of artificial intelligence-powered weapons as tools to enforce American "hard power" around the world; declares that "national service should be a universal duty," while suggesting the US should "seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force"; and denounces the embrace of "a vacant and hollow pluralism" on the grounds that some cultures "remain dysfunctional and regressive."

Many critics argued that the manifesto was particularly worrisome given Palantir's role in providing intelligence software to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US military, and the Israel Defense Forces, among other entities.

In a lengthy social media post, Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde described the Palantir manifesto as "one of the scariest things I have seen in a while."

"It is a call for a world dominated by an authoritarian US, generated by AI... run by tech-surveillance companies," Mudde explained.

Mudde said the manifesto shows that European countries need to end any reliance on Palantir for security, and he recommended Democrats draw up plans to go after Palantir and other Big Tech firms upon returning to power.

"Democrats should develop an actionable agenda of democratic reform in case they return to power," Mudde wrote. "This cannot be limited to institutional reforms, but must include reining in the power and wealth of technofascist companies and individuals."

University of Michigan political scientist Donald Moynihan published an analysis of the Palantir manifesto and concluded that "on the whole, the manifesto’s vision... is that of a US government and its tech allies as dominant players, unconstrained by accountability."

In his review, Moynihan zeroed in on the manifesto's disparagement of US "soft power" as insufficient to secure American dominance in the 21st Century, and he noted that Palantir's own financial interests rest in a US hegemon that eschews diplomacy in favor of maximal military aggression.

"A world where soft power has real and lasting impact is simply less profitable for a company like Palantir relative to a world where we blow a lot of stuff up," Moynihan observed. "A world featuring an AI arms race is more profitable than a world with AI regulation. A world where Silicon Valley polices domestic crime is more profitable than a world that constrains surveillance on the public."

Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis argued that the manifesto was useful for distilling Palantir's "hideous ideology in 22 points," revealing its desire to create a blood-soaked world where "ethics is for suckers."

"Palantir works overtime to equip US Marines with killer bots that take away from the US Marines whatever remnants of ethical judgment they are left with on the battlefield," Varoufakis wrote in summarizing the company's praise of AI-powered weapons. "American society should be rendered perfectly incapable of any debate that restricts Palantir’s capacity to get the US military to eliminate any remaining opportunity to reject its software’s choice of targets."

Cheyenne MacDonald, weekend editor at tech news site Engadget, summed up the Palantir manifesto by arguing that it "reads like the ramblings of a comic book villain."