Palantir's Co-Founder Wants Us Less Judgmental About Deadly Iran School Strike
Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale defended the use of AI-assisted warfare following a controversial US strike on a school in Iran. He suggested that the incident may have been a result of enemy deception rather than technological failure.
Why it matters
The comments spark debate over the ethics of AI in military targeting and the accountability of private tech firms in global conflicts.
Palantir and 8VC co-founder Joe Lonsdale at his home in Woodside, California. Christie Hemm Klok/The Washington Post/Getty
Joe Lonsdale, a cofounder of weapons-tech company Palantir, shared some of his thoughts on America’s AI-assisted warfare at a Reuters -hosted event late last week—and one statement stands out as being particularly alarming. The US strike on a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, in February was tragic, he acknowledged—but, he argued, “It’s very easy to judge things from the outside.”
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