America
Palantir, endless war, and the global Zionist surveillance state
In the previous article in this series, we stated that the Palantir company was a product of the “counter-terrorism” concept that followed September 11th.
The Dissident blog points out that Palantir’s system is based on the “Total Information Awareness” idea of John Poindexter, a former Reagan-era official who proposed the creation of a massive database containing all information on American citizens after the 9/11 attacks.
Poindexter and Richard Perle, one of the neocon architects of the Iraq War, met with Palantir’s founders, Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, because their new company, Palantir, “had a similar purpose to what Poindexter was trying to create at the Pentagon.”
Palantir soon incorporated and received millions of dollars in funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital investment arm of the CIA.
Palantir’s software allowed intelligence agencies to create a massive database on Americans. Bloomberg wrote, “Using Palantir technology, the FBI can now create comprehensive files on U.S. citizens in an instant, combining security camera footage from outside a pharmacy with credit card transactions, cell phone records, emails, flight records, and internet search histories.”
Within the framework of Palantir’s mission to “save Western civilization,” its bond with Israel, which operates as the spearhead [a translation of uç beyi, a historical term for a frontier lord or vanguard] of this civilization, deserves special attention.
The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Karp is unwavering in his support for Israel. The company took out a full-page ad in The New York Times last year declaring, ‘Palantir stands with Israel.'”
The company’s official social media accounts openly supported Israel’s attacks in Gaza, which have amounted to genocide. On October 11, 2023, the company tweeted, “Certain kinds of evil can only be fought with force. Palantir stands with Israel.”
On October 7, 2024, exactly one year after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, the company’s official X account once again reiterated its support for the genocide in Gaza, tweeting, “Palantir remembers October 7th. We stand with Israel.”
Alex Karp openly expressed his pro-war and pro-Israel views. The CEO told The New York Times that Israel should “turn [Gaza] into a parking lot.”
In the same New York Times article, Karp described protests against providing weapons to Israel as “an infection within society,” stating that he supported stopping these protests.
Karp also boasted to the newspaper that he uses his technology to sustain the war in Ukraine and the occupation in Gaza, saying, “I am not going to apologize for giving our product to Ukraine, to Israel or to many other places.”(1)
In an interview to Time, Karp said he saw an opportunity in Ukraine for Palantir to fulfill its mission to “defend the West” and “make our enemies tremble with fear.”
Government officials were trained to use Palantir’s tool called MetaConstellation, which provides a near-real-time picture of a specific battlefield using commercial data, including satellite imagery.
Palantir’s software integrates this information with commercial and classified government data, including from allies, allowing military officials to relay enemy positions to commanders on the ground or to decide to strike a target. This is part of what Karp calls the digital “kill chain.”
At a Palantir earnings call in 2024, Karp boasted, “I am exceedingly proud that after October 7th, within a couple of weeks, we were on the ground in Israel and involved in operationally crucial operations.”
When Karp was protested by a Palestinian activist at a conference for Palantir’s role in aiding the genocide in Gaza, he said, “I believe he [the protester] is a product of an evil force of Hamas that he is not aware of. He is part of their strategy, their product, without being aware of it.”
In a 2024 interview with CNBC, Karp said that supporting Israel was the most important issue for him, asking, “The most important issue of our day is war and peace, and the most important metaphor for that is: What do you think about what’s happening in Israel?”
Karp also called for an end to pro-Palestinian protests. At a conference, Karp said, “What’s happening on university campuses [referring to pro-Palestinian protests] is some sort of sideshow—no, they are the main show, because if we lose the intellectual debate, you can’t deploy any army in the West.”
Palantir’s mastermind, Peter Thiel, shares similar views. When asked about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence in Gaza, Thiel said, “I don’t know all the details of what’s going on in Israel, because my bias is to defer to Israel.”
Thiel continued, saying he believed that “in general” the Israeli army has the right to decide what it wants to do and that “in general” it is in the right.
This commitment to Israel does not end there.
The company is so intertwined with Israel that it boasted on social media about holding its first board meeting of 2024 in Tel Aviv.
Before the board meeting, Karp and Thiel met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and shared the meeting on social media, writing, “We are proud to stand with Israel, supporting its culture of innovation, technology, and democracy.”
Following the board meeting, CTECH reported that Palantir announced it had signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to “provide Palantir technology to aid the country’s war efforts.”
The agreement was signed after a meeting between Israeli defense officials and Thiel and Karp.
After signing the deal, Karp told Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi:
“There are many people in the (tech) industry who are not as pro-Israel as I am, but they too see Israel as a very special place and generally understand Israel’s position better and appreciate the success of building a country out of the desert.”
Globes, an Israeli business news site, reported that during this trip, Karp “participated in a public event at Tel Aviv University” and “showered praise on Israel.”
Globes wrote that Israel was preparing to purchase from Palantir “an AI-based system called AIP, designed to assist in intelligence-based decision-making and to analyze enemy targets and recommend combat moves.”
The same report also included the claim that Palantir expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the deal with Israel.
Journalist Antony Loewenstein writes, “Israel’s military-industrial complex sees its occupation as a vital testing ground for trying out the latest methods of killing and surveillance.”
Loewenstein points out that Palestinians are seen as “guinea pigs,” but this activity is not limited to Palestine (Karp told Time, “There are things we can do on the battlefield that we can’t do at home”). According to him, “Silicon Valley has taken notice,” and the new Trump era “heralds an even tighter alliance between big tech, Israel, and the defense sector.”
William Hartung, evaluating Palantir and American foreign policy for Responsible Statecraft, states that Palantir’s goal is “to shape overall U.S. national security policy, which in turn can determine what military technologies the U.S. will invest in for the next generation.”
After starting his new role as Palantir’s head of defense, former Republican Representative Mike Gallagher promised to use his connections within the government to facilitate the growth of emerging military technology companies, largely by securing a larger share of tax revenues.
Another characteristic of Gallagher is that he stood out as a leading “China hawk” during his time in Congress. Gallagher is the co-author of a recent article in Foreign Affairs titled “No Substitute for Victory: America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed.”
In the article, Gallagher and his co-author Matthew Pottinger argue that the U.S. “must implement a better policy” and call for action to rearm the U.S. military, reduce China’s economic influence, and build a broader coalition against China.
Judging by his stance as chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, Gallagher’s views are quite close to those of Palantir’s executives.
Close, because Palantir CEO Alex Karp has said that the U.S. will “probably” go to war with China and that the best policy is to “scare the shit out of your enemy.”
In a moment of striking candor, Karp admitted, “Our product is sometimes used to kill people”: “If I were younger in college, would I be protesting myself?”
Palantir’s advisor, Jacob Helberg, described the company as “the AI arms dealer of the 21st century.”
Karp has long rejected the widespread criticism that Palantir’s products enable governments to conduct warrantless surveillance of their citizens.
When I say he rejects them, don’t think he denies the reality. It’s more of a, “Yes, I do it, but you should ask why I do it.”
The CEO says he sees a “moral imperative” to provide Western governments with the best new technologies, calling for “closer collaboration between the state and the tech sector,” which he believes will allow the West to maintain its superiority over its global rivals.
For years, the U.S. has imposed strict regulations on the export of weapons systems to foreign countries due to the lack of accountability once they are in the hands of users and the possibility of serious war crimes being committed. At least, that’s how it is on paper.
But Karp legitimizes his own products by saying, “The power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems is now so great that it is equivalent to having tactical nuclear weapons against an enemy that only has conventional weapons.”
If the West didn’t have “real enemies,” Karp told Bloomberg, he would be one of those trying to limit the use of artificial intelligence in the military: “But the reality we live in now, as Israel knows, is that our enemies are real and dangerous and operate far beyond the norms of behavior.”
Karp stated in 2023 that Palantir was in talks with “hundreds” of potential partners about its AIP platform, but details like pricing and terms were still being determined.
Karp told analysts that Palantir was refocusing its engineering teams and other resources on artificial intelligence to meet demand, stating that it was “aggressively pursuing” this opportunity.
“How Big Tech Captured the Army”
This was the headline of a June 17 report in The Bulwark.
The recent entry of officials from high-tech companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir into the military has raised concerns that Silicon Valley is taking control.
But is it just the American military? NATO announced it will use Palantir’s artificial intelligence platform for “faster military decision-making.” The MSS NATO system aims to automate data analysis that previously required large teams.
Berliner Zeitung reported that in the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition negotiations, it was agreed that the CSU would take over the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the future. This means Palantir will have more opportunities at the federal level, as in Bavaria, where the CSU is in power, the state police have been using the company’s software since August of last year.
According to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, the cross-procedural research and analysis platform VeRA makes it possible to “quickly and reliably analyze and process large amounts of data from a wide variety of sources and to generate important findings at high speed.”
Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia are also currently using Palantir. According to information from Bayerischer Rundfunk, Berlin and Baden-Württemberg are also currently considering collaborating with the company.(2)
In the United Kingdom, Palantir already has a £330 million National Health Service (NHS) data contract. In May, to encourage hospitals to adopt this technology, the government signed an £8 million deal with consulting giant KPMG to “promote the adoption” of Palantir’s technology in the NHS. London also used Palantir systems to monitor its military.
Until now, the Pentagon’s known “Gang of Five” consisted of the following companies: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.
A recent report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft reveals that the share of private companies in the Pentagon’s defense spending is steadily increasing.
Over the last 35 years, the Pentagon has allocated a growing portion of its budget to private sector contracts. In the fiscal years 1990-1999, the Pentagon’s average annual spending on contracts amounted to 41% of its total spending. This ratio has increased every decade: in the first five years of this decade, the share of private companies in the Pentagon budget reached a record high of 54%.
For the 2020-2024 period, $2.4 trillion of the total $4.4 trillion in defense spending was awarded to private companies.
However, the overwhelming majority of this share went to five large companies. Between 2020 and 2024, the Pentagon’s top five arms suppliers received contracts totaling $771 billion. This amount committed to the top five companies constitutes one-third of the total $2.4 trillion in contracts awarded by the Pentagon between 2020 and 2024.
Lockheed Martin was the clear leader with $313 billion in contracts between 2020 and 2024, while its closest competitor, Raytheon (now RTX), received $145 billion in contracts.
However, the report’s findings point to something else: this dominance is increasingly under threat from a new generation of military technology companies.
While the big five companies continue to hold a large portion of the Pentagon’s defense spending budget, there has been an increase in new contracts with tech firms specializing in artificial intelligence for military applications such as drones, unmanned ships, and armored vehicles.
The rise of these new military technology firms marks the biggest shift in the arms industry in the last five years.
The report states, “Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril have received billions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon for communications, targeting, unmanned vehicles, drone defense systems, and hypersonic weapons. The funds from these contracts will be transferred to the companies over time, which will place them among the Pentagon’s largest contractors in terms of contract value in the next few years.”
According to the report, Palantir signed a $618 million contract with the army for a data platform using artificial intelligence, a $480 million contract to continue work on the Project Maven targeting system, and a five-year, $463 million contract with the U.S. Special Operations Command to integrate advanced commercial software into its operations.
The report notes, “As the Pentagon moves toward AI-powered weapons systems, including swarms of drones, ships, and combat vehicles, the dominance of the Big Five companies may diminish.”
In the first quarter of 2025, Palantir’s revenue grew by 39% year-over-year, while its U.S. sales increased by 55%. The commercial division now generates $1 billion in annual revenue, indicating long-term demand in sectors such as energy, finance, and logistics.
“This diversity is vital,” writes AInvest. Palantir’s AI platforms are being adopted by critical infrastructure operators to mitigate risks such as cyberattacks, a significant security vulnerability due to “Iran’s asymmetric warfare tactics.” Partnerships with cybersecurity firms like Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike further strengthen defense capabilities against state-sponsored threats.(3)
“AI self-confidence” is coming to the fore. In a brochure/article titled “Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy” published on Anduril’s blog, the Gang of Five are described as “relics of the Cold War” that must be eliminated if America wants to take the lead in developing and producing the weapons of the future:
“Why can’t the existing defense companies do better? The largest defense companies are staffed by patriots, but they lack the software expertise or business model to build the technology we need. Tomorrow’s weapons—autonomous systems, cyber weapons and defenses, networked systems, and more—run on software, while these companies specialize in hardware. These companies work slowly, while the best engineers enjoy working fast… These companies built the tools that kept us safe in the past, but they are not the future of our defense.”
Palantir’s stock price more than quadrupled last year, making it more valuable than RTX and Lockheed Martin at the beginning of this year. Behind these shadowy companies is a new breed of predators known as “venture capital” (VC). Leading VC firms like Thiel’s Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Lux Capital are among the rising stars of the defense sector, such as Anduril, Hadrian, and Rebellion Defense.
Furthermore, new defense monopolies are forming. A consortium led by Anduril and Palantir plans to join with other defense technology companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI to bid jointly on military contracts.
In this process, venture capitalists are not only achieving high returns on investment but also gaining increasing influence over U.S. foreign policy. Michael Kratsios, Thiel’s former chief advisor, and other Thiel-connected individuals, including Jacob Helberg, a senior advisor at Palantir, are being appointed to positions such as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, respectively.
“Working for the Pentagon doesn’t seem like a bad thing anymore,” says William Hartung, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Many of these new companies seem to want it very much, and venture capital firms are facilitating it.”
Palmer Luckey of Anduril describes venture capitalists who want to protect their current investments as “hawkish,” saying, “Anyone who cares about Ukraine is also watching Taiwan, because… a slide south for Taiwan poses a real existential threat to many of their investments [there]. For this reason, we see a hawkish stance in most venture capitalists.”(4)
A representative of the VC group America’s Frontier Fund (AFF) is more blunt, not hesitating to say, referring to Taiwan: “If there is a kinetic event in the Pacific, some of our investments will increase 10-fold overnight.”
Under the heading “geopolitical impact risks,” AInvest implies that Palantir is comfortable: “Rising tensions in the Middle East, the South China Sea, and Eastern Europe ensure that the demand for analytical services in this area remains stable.”
The most carrion-like version of capitalism wants endless war, a global Zionist surveillance empire.
(1) Time magazine writes that Palantir CEO Alex Karp was “the first major Western corporate leader to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s invasion.” The article admits that in the year and a half since Karp’s first meeting with Zelensky, Palantir has become “unprecedentedly involved” in the daily affairs of a foreign government at war: “More than half a dozen Ukrainian institutions, including the Ministries of Defense, Economy, and Education, use the company’s products. According to Karp, Palantir’s software, which analyzes satellite imagery, open-source data, drone footage, and reports from the ground using artificial intelligence to present military options to commanders, is ‘responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine.’ Ukrainian officials said they use the company’s data analysis for projects that go far beyond battlefield intelligence, including collecting evidence of war crimes, clearing landmines, resettling displaced refugees, and rooting out corruption.” More interestingly, Time notes that Palantir offered its services to Ukraine for free to use the bloody war as a testing ground, claiming, “Palantir was so eager to showcase its capabilities that it provided them to Ukraine for free.”
(2) The Germany-Palantir relationship requires separate examination. Mathias Döpfner, CEO and co-owner of the German media giant Axel Springer, which owns POLITICO, has very close ties with Palantir founder Peter Thiel. His son, Moritz Döpfner, previously served as managing director at the billionaire’s family office, Thiel Capital. According to the German press, the younger Döpfner had established a new venture capital fund with a $50 million investment from Thiel. From a podcast Mathias Döpfner did with Karp in 2019, we also learn that the Palantir executive was on Axel Springer’s supervisory board at the time. It was leaked to the media that Axel Springer requires its employees to sign a contract demanding commitment to the free market, support for the US-Europe alliance, and “support for Israel’s right to exist.” From a 2019 report in Business Insider, which is majority-owned by Axel Springer, we learn that Palantir had passed data to police forces in the country about Anis Amri, who carried out an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016.
(3) One of the secrets to Palantir’s commercial success is its creation of an “ecosystem.” The Pentagon’s Maven user base has doubled since the beginning of 2024, reaching 20,000 users across 35 vehicles. AInvest writes: “The global defense AI market is projected to reach $40 billion by 2030, with governments prioritizing ‘information dominance’ over traditional hardware. Palantir’s AI infrastructure is not just a tool, but an ecosystem platform. Its ability to integrate data from different domains (e.g., the all-domain command and control system of CJADC2) creates high switching costs and recurring revenue streams.”
(4) Let’s not forget the Middle East: The Pentagon, which uses Palantir’s Maven Smart System (MSS), increased the MSS contract by $795 million in 2024, bringing the total amount to $1.3 billion by 2029. This system, managed by Aberdeen Proving Ground, currently serves five major combatant commands, including Central Command (CENTCOM), the center of operations in the Middle East. MSS uses artificial intelligence to analyze surveillance data (satellite images, video streams) in real-time, enabling intelligence fusion, target identification, and battlefield decision-making. This capability is vital in scenarios such as tracking the movements of the Iranian military near the Strait of Hormuz or monitoring nuclear facilities. NATO’s adoption of the MSS-NATO variant in 2025 further underscores Palantir’s global role: the alliance is using generative AI and machine learning tools to enhance allied command operations, with integration completed in just six months.
America
US economic growth outpaces G7 peers amid artificial intelligence boom
The US economy is projected to grow much faster than all other major advanced economies this year, as its domestic policies trigger difficulties across much of the globe.
According to Axios, the global economy has proved surprisingly resilient in the face of successive shocks.
The US stands out within this broader picture. A boom in artificial intelligence investment is helping the country expand far more rapidly than peer economies.
Yet this exceptional performance carries a price: more persistent inflation and interest rates that may need to stay at elevated levels for longer to rein it in.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projects that the US economy will expand by 2.2% this year.
That rate is roughly double the pace forecast for the eurozone, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Growth is expected to be even weaker in Japan (0.8%) and Canada (0.9%).
This growth gap is expected to persist next year. In 2027, US growth is projected to reach 2.1%, while growth across most other major advanced economies in the rest of the world is forecast to hover around 1%.
The OECD has grown more optimistic regarding the US since June, raising its growth forecast by 0.2 percentage points for 2026 and by 0.3 percentage points for 2027.
This trend contrasts with downward revisions to next year’s growth projections for the global economy overall, the eurozone, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
OECD Chief Economist Stefano Scarpetta told reporters this morning:
“The biggest risk remains the course of the conflict in the Middle East and its impact on the energy market. But there are a number of other risks, some of which appear to have become somewhat more pronounced compared to the June forecasts.”
Scarpetta highlighted rising government bond yields, the risks accompanying the AI investment boom, and the likelihood of extreme weather pushing up food prices.
According to the OECD, the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) has provided the US economy with a powerful shock absorber absent in most other economies.
Rapid growth in AI investment and manufacturing “partially offset” the economic blow dealt by the conflict in the Middle East.
Data centre and technology spending directly bolstered US growth.
The inflation outlook, meanwhile, is proving more stubborn than it appeared several months ago.
The OECD expects headline inflation in the US to fall from 3.6% this year to 2.6% next year.
However, this forecast for 2027 is half a percentage point higher than the figure projected in June.
Core inflation in the US is projected to stand at 3.3% this year, among the highest rates across leading advanced economies, before easing to 2.5% next year.
This stubborn path explains why the OECD expects the Federal Reserve to deliver one more interest-rate increase this year and anticipates rates will remain in the 4% to 4.25% range through the end of 2027.
On the other hand, the AI boom accelerating US growth is beginning to bring its own macroeconomic headwinds.
According to the OECD, long-term borrowing costs in most of these major economies are at their highest levels in at least 15 years.
The organisation argues that heavy borrowing by AI firms has contributed to pushing yields higher, which could elevate costs across the broader economy and leave markets vulnerable if AI profits fail to meet expectations.
America has contributed to making the global economic climate more challenging.
Even though its own economy has so far performed better than nearly all other countries, this resilience comes accompanied by an inflation problem that remains difficult to eliminate.
America
Republican support for Trump’s war with Iran drops sharply in polls
Republican backing from US President Donald Trump’s own party for the war he is waging against Iran is declining swiftly.
According to a CNN/SSRS poll published on 22 September, the proportion of Republicans who approve of Trump’s handling of the war dropped from 73% in March to 60% in September.
A majority of Republicans under the age of 45, as well as Republican voters outside the MAGA movement, no longer approve of Trump’s war policy.
Three-quarters of Americans believe that the Iran war is not worth its human and financial toll.
Regarding the war, which has been ongoing for roughly seven months, 78% of respondents stated that Trump is not making sufficient efforts to end the conflict. Approximately two out of every three people disagreed with the view that the US is winning the war.
Approval of Trump’s overall foreign policy stewardship remained at just 29%. This marked the lowest level recorded by CNN across Trump’s two presidential terms.
Share of those viewing Israel as an ‘enemy’ at record level
The proportion of respondents defining Israel as an enemy of the US rose to its highest point in CNN surveys conducted since 2000. This figure reached approximately double the level recorded in March 2025.
In a separate Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted among 1,277 adults, Trump’s overall approval rating slipped within a single week from 35% to 32%. This represented the lowest approval rating measured throughout Trump’s political career.
Discontent among Republican voters over the cost of living is also mounting. The proportion approving of Trump’s performance in this area stood at merely 17%.
While the cost of living remains the paramount issue for voters ahead of the 3 November midterm elections, the sharp surge in fuel prices since the onset of the war has exacerbated unease within the Republican base.
82% believe the war will be prolonged
Earlier this month, Trump said the war would conclude “right after” the elections. However, 82% of poll respondents believe the fighting will continue for a prolonged period.
Tehran, meanwhile, has shown no sign of backing down in the face of US military and economic pressure.
In a report published on 10 September, The Wall Street Journal revealed that US Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other senior officials had warned Trump in private discussions.
Officials reportedly said that Iran could continue resisting Washington’s military and economic pressure and withstand this coercion even beyond January 2029, when Trump’s term in office concludes.
America
Big Tech profits from AI extinction hype, Ken Klippenstein says
In the debate surrounding the dangers posed by artificial intelligence, almost everyone is attempting to market a product.
While the mainstream media portrays artificial intelligence as an imminent mass extinction event, US President Donald Trump frames the issue within the context of a new Cold War with China, arguing that the US cannot afford to slow down.
In his analysis, journalist Ken Klippenstein emphasizes that Silicon Valley elites profit directly from this intense attention.
A new generation of the tech class is occupying the public mind with various doomsday scenarios, ranging from bioterrorism to machines taking over the world.
While this dynamic transforms artificial intelligence into a “national security” issue, it elevates the technology to the level of nuclear weapons and removes it from public oversight.
The intelligence community thinks the A.I. apocalypse narrative is BShttps://t.co/DpyAIXx4ob
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) September 15, 2026
Although not immune to the tendency to exaggerate threats, reports from US intelligence agencies paint a picture far removed from the hysterical tone in the media.
The US intelligence community assesses that artificial intelligence merely magnifies risks that already exist.
Sensational headlines run by legacy media are fueled by social media figures who spread claims of human extinction to millions of followers. In this way, fears themed around “existential risk” or “doomsday” take root in the public imagination.
On the other side of the coin are those who oppose disaster narratives while pursuing their own commercial interests.
Prominent figures in this camp include Yann LeCun, former chief AI scientist at Meta, and Andrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain and head of AI Fund.
In October 2023, LeCun accused OpenAI chief Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic chief Dario Amodei of running a “massive lobbying effort” designed to tilt the regulatory landscape in their own favor.
LeCun warned that if these fear politics succeed, artificial intelligence will be monopolized by a small number of corporations.
Ng, for his part, described the claim that artificial intelligence would destroy humanity as “mind-bogglingly stupid”, arguing that large corporations are stoking extinction fears to avoid competing with open-source models.
Although these criticisms carry truth regarding corporate aims, the conflicting interests of both sides remain striking.
LeCun and Ng advocate open-source artificial intelligence models, whereas Anthropic and OpenAI favor proprietary models that keep their source code secret and lease access to users.
While major players producing proprietary models possess the capacity to comply with prospective federal licensing rules, open-source enterprises stand to be damaged by such statutory mandates. The common ground shared by doom-mongers and deregulation advocates is their lack of concern for the actual risks artificial intelligence generates.
The US intelligence community provides a more measured framework regarding tangible dangers.
In the Annual Threat Assessment, which catalogues China’s military strength, Russian influence operations, and drug cartels, the threats posed by artificial intelligence are summarized in just three items:
“It is essential to ensure that the use of machines and AI remains under human control.”
“These applications also carry risks that require careful human engineering to properly mitigate the risk of AI autonomy before they are widely deployed.”
“Emerging technologies such as AI and quantum computing are expected to have significant implications for national security.”
The official assessment by the 18 agencies comprising US intelligence on the perils of artificial intelligence remains limited to these statements. The reports contain no determinations concerning superintelligence, the annihilation of humanity, or an uprising of machines.
The US Department of Homeland Security Threat Assessment notes that artificial intelligence merely introduces fresh layers of complexity to existing threats. The department outlines five primary issues:
Disinformation, fabricated video or audio recordings (deepfakes), and election interference;
Cyber operations and financial crime;
The exploitation of this technology by violent extremists, alongside radicalization;
The proliferation of chemical and biological knowledge;
The circumvention of AI security controls and the poisoning of training data.
All of these risks were familiar prior to the emergence of artificial intelligence. AI-enabled disinformation permits legacy propaganda methods to be deployed with greater speed and intensity.
Cyber operations, financial crime, and elements of radicalization have likewise ranked as familiar subjects for many years.
Concerns regarding biological and chemical threats date back to the Bill Clinton administration, while the fifth item stems entirely from humans tampering with AI security controls.
The Global Catastrophic Risks Assessment report by the Pentagon-funded RAND Corporation think tank defines artificial intelligence as an “entropy source”.
The report states:
“AI can be thought of as adding entropy and chaos to thorny problems humans face. Chaos does not require the development of superintelligent or supercapable AI; it is possible with current and near-term AI capabilities.”
Another research study conducted within RAND identifies genetically engineered pathogens, geoengineering, and nuclear war as three plausible pathways to human extinction.
However, numerous physical and operational constraints prevent artificial intelligence from triggering these catastrophes.
In a follow-up report investigating whether large language models facilitate the planning of a mass biological attack, RAND Corp. researchers identified no statistically significant difference between plans formulated with AI assistance and those produced independently.
The US National Academy of Sciences similarly notes that the primary barrier to bioterrorism is not an absence of access to information.
The decisive bottleneck lies in DNA synthesis screening, hands-on laboratory skill, culturing, formulation, and aerosolization: procedures that all demand human intervention, carry high costs, and remain prone to failure.
Having no commercial product to release or corporate shares to protect, official analysts record with balanced language that artificial intelligence does nothing beyond compounding the scale and velocity of current problems.
Observing that all factions resort to exaggerated rhetoric to capture attention, Klippenstein points out that in the debate over whether a chatbot will transform into a god, the major actors turn a profit while foisting the cost onto the public.
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