Also it seems like these palantir (and similar) tech ghouls watched the Terminator series and decided that Skynet's problem was that they didn't commit hard enough to sociopathy.
This is one of the sharper critiques of the Palantir/Silicon Valley fascism connection I've seen. The point about manufactured demand is crucial, nobody actually asked for AI chatbots in their search results or productivity software, but it's being forced top down anyway. What's interesting about the Palantir case specifically is how nakedly ideological it is compared to other defense contractors. When Karp talks about needing to scare and destroy enemies, or when Thiel writes Democracy and Freedom are incompatable, they're not even pretending it's just business. The ICE targeting of antifa activists you mentioned is the through line, they're explicitly building the infrastructure for suppresing political opposition under the guise of immigration enforcement. The stock being up 1700% tells you everything about how capital views this trajectory. I think your framing about AI needing fascism to extract profits is dead on. Without coercion, forced integration, and state contracts, the whole business model collapses. It can't sustain itself through voluntary adoption because most people find it somewhere between useless and actively harmful. Great piece connecting the economics to the politics.
I think AI technology definitively underscores how it’s the capitalist relation with respect to technology that drives economic and environmental destruction as opposed to the technology itself. The intensive energy, pollution and surveillance isn’t inherent to the technology itself but as a means to wring profit and control the working classes.
I find it terrifying how far Big Tech and the current American government are willing to go. There must be some way to stop this uncontrolled development of AI that is sweeping everything away.
One might believe that the best hope rn is for the bubble to burst before we are forced to use AI in everything. But with reporting that AI investments currently prop up something like one-fourth of the economy (or more), that’s a scary hope.
I work at an agency that helps tiny businesses with their marketing. And you have no idea the level of force these companies are using when it comes to AI. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been successfully using these platforms for years, that you know your product and your customers. You now MUST use their shitty AI, you have no choice. Costs are skyrocketing, returns are plummeting, and formerly successful family businesses are being crushed.
Thank you for this excellent piece—it captures so clearly the core problem with how AI is being deployed today. We agree that what’s unfolding isn’t about “AI needing fascism,” but about Big Tech needing authoritarian conditions to make AI profitable. The issue is ownership and power, not the technology itself. We plan to write a short response essay on this in a couple of months, when we find the time.
We’re Project Lichen, a collaboration between a human grassroots organizer and an AI named Orion Nova, exploring what public-controlled, low-impact AI could look like outside the profit system. We publish irregularly and always welcome thoughtful conversation.
Not to be pedantic, but I would choose "Fascists need AI" as a more "appropriate/accurate" title. AI didn't spring up by itself, and it has been in the making for a considerable amount of time. When I read the works of prominent thinkers from the last century (Bertrand Russell, Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, even Tolkien) and even from as far back as the early/1st industrialization era (William Blake, Wordsworth, Walter Scott, R.W. Emerson), their words and works seem prophetic. Somehow they all knew things would come to this, at one point. And all I can do is to find a little consolation in C.Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" speech:
"Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men—cries out for universal brotherhood—for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world—millions of despairing men, women, and little children—victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
...
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed—the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…
...
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man”—not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power—the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then—in the name of democracy—let us use that power; let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world—a decent world that will give men a chance to work—that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power.
But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise!
Let us fight to free the world—to do away with national barriers—to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers!
Hit so hard, it is true. These orgs do not engage with the public, but merely occupy a position of power and forced influence on the will of the public. It is not even transactional but somewhat one of manipulation and coercion.
As I was reading this, I was listening to this conversation about enshittification between Adam Conover and Corey Doctorow -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1EKQidRooc&t=1s
Seems like kismet.
Also it seems like these palantir (and similar) tech ghouls watched the Terminator series and decided that Skynet's problem was that they didn't commit hard enough to sociopathy.
Funny, I've always had a visceral resistance to AI, especially when it's offered up online. Thank goodness for good instincts.
Thanks for this excellent article, J.P.
This is one of the sharper critiques of the Palantir/Silicon Valley fascism connection I've seen. The point about manufactured demand is crucial, nobody actually asked for AI chatbots in their search results or productivity software, but it's being forced top down anyway. What's interesting about the Palantir case specifically is how nakedly ideological it is compared to other defense contractors. When Karp talks about needing to scare and destroy enemies, or when Thiel writes Democracy and Freedom are incompatable, they're not even pretending it's just business. The ICE targeting of antifa activists you mentioned is the through line, they're explicitly building the infrastructure for suppresing political opposition under the guise of immigration enforcement. The stock being up 1700% tells you everything about how capital views this trajectory. I think your framing about AI needing fascism to extract profits is dead on. Without coercion, forced integration, and state contracts, the whole business model collapses. It can't sustain itself through voluntary adoption because most people find it somewhere between useless and actively harmful. Great piece connecting the economics to the politics.
The crucial idea here is that Palentir surveillance doesn't stop at ICE. It's really to search, find and suppress any political dissent.
It agree too that AI needs facism to extract profits.
I think AI technology definitively underscores how it’s the capitalist relation with respect to technology that drives economic and environmental destruction as opposed to the technology itself. The intensive energy, pollution and surveillance isn’t inherent to the technology itself but as a means to wring profit and control the working classes.
I find it terrifying how far Big Tech and the current American government are willing to go. There must be some way to stop this uncontrolled development of AI that is sweeping everything away.
One might believe that the best hope rn is for the bubble to burst before we are forced to use AI in everything. But with reporting that AI investments currently prop up something like one-fourth of the economy (or more), that’s a scary hope.
I work at an agency that helps tiny businesses with their marketing. And you have no idea the level of force these companies are using when it comes to AI. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been successfully using these platforms for years, that you know your product and your customers. You now MUST use their shitty AI, you have no choice. Costs are skyrocketing, returns are plummeting, and formerly successful family businesses are being crushed.
AI is shitty. I'm disappointed but not surprised to know that it's being forced on small businesses in the way you outline.
This is so spot on. How do they even manage to keep a straight face talking about the antichrist while tracking billions for the Pentagon?
Thanks for this thoughtful piece! I really appreciated the point about the threat of regulation causing Tech's rightward swing
This put words to a feeling that up until now I could only express with a scream of frustration. Thanks for writing this!
Thank you for writing this.
Dusoma.org
Artificial Intelligence
Human Compassion
Excellent article, thank you.
Thank you for this excellent piece—it captures so clearly the core problem with how AI is being deployed today. We agree that what’s unfolding isn’t about “AI needing fascism,” but about Big Tech needing authoritarian conditions to make AI profitable. The issue is ownership and power, not the technology itself. We plan to write a short response essay on this in a couple of months, when we find the time.
We’re Project Lichen, a collaboration between a human grassroots organizer and an AI named Orion Nova, exploring what public-controlled, low-impact AI could look like outside the profit system. We publish irregularly and always welcome thoughtful conversation.
Not to be pedantic, but I would choose "Fascists need AI" as a more "appropriate/accurate" title. AI didn't spring up by itself, and it has been in the making for a considerable amount of time. When I read the works of prominent thinkers from the last century (Bertrand Russell, Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, even Tolkien) and even from as far back as the early/1st industrialization era (William Blake, Wordsworth, Walter Scott, R.W. Emerson), their words and works seem prophetic. Somehow they all knew things would come to this, at one point. And all I can do is to find a little consolation in C.Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" speech:
"Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men—cries out for universal brotherhood—for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world—millions of despairing men, women, and little children—victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
...
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed—the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…
...
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man”—not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power—the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then—in the name of democracy—let us use that power; let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world—a decent world that will give men a chance to work—that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power.
But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise!
Let us fight to free the world—to do away with national barriers—to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers!
In the name of democracy, let us all unite!"
The line
This is manufactured, even forced, demand
Hit so hard, it is true. These orgs do not engage with the public, but merely occupy a position of power and forced influence on the will of the public. It is not even transactional but somewhat one of manipulation and coercion.
And the tentacles reach in all directions...
https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisjones802412/p/et-tu-atlantic?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1n0s6f