163 pointsby ClearwayLawa day ago14 comments
  • tomComba day ago
    I don’t know the specifics of this case, but in Canada, calls like this (all wrapped up in the flag), usually come from Canadian companies hoping for some sort of sole sourced contract that they have no business getting.

    So so perhaps we should be excluding American companies at this time, but in the name of competition and openness, we should allow bids from our real allies, such as the Europeans or the Asians.

    • ronsora day ago
      "America or not" is a red herring. Palantir is the specific problem.

      The kind of people running these companies don't have true allegiance to anything but their own objectives. If necessary, they'd move all operations to Europe or East Asia in a month, and you'd have "Palantir 2" under a different name with no better ethics or privacy.

      Increased emphasis has to be on running things domestically with on-premises hardware. As long as the vendor is elsewhere and not subject to oversight, the risks remain.

    • soupbowla day ago
      Excluding China, I hope.
      • singpolyma3a day ago
        Why?
        • soupbowla day ago
          Because they are a communist country aligned with Russia.
          • a day ago
            undefined
          • dogcomplexa day ago
            Been a whole lot longer since their last genocide
          • graemepa day ago
            They are no longer communist. Its state controlled capitalism with a tendency to personality cult, racism, and the destruction of minorities and the systematic destruction of minority cultures.
          • protocolturea day ago
            China is the most sensible current superpower. They are barely communist at all since Deng and have a better recent track record in terms of maintaining global trade. And at least in recent years they are probably the least worst super power in terms of imprisoning minorities.

            Oh and Premier Xi lives under your bed.

            • ronsora day ago
              > least worst super power in terms of imprisoning minorities

              It's amazing how fast everyone forgot about Xinjiang. These things don't stop simply because journalists get bored.

              • pphyscha day ago
                What do you think happened in Xinjiang?
              • protocolturea day ago
                >It's amazing how fast everyone forgot about Xinjiang. These things don't stop simply because journalists get bored.

                Havent forgotten. Its not that China got better, its that its competitors got worse.

                • graemepa day ago
                  Worse to the level of Xinjian?
                  • pphysch16 hours ago
                    The recent real war crimes of the US-Israeli entity are only comparable to the fake war crimes they conveniently accuse their opponents of while carrying out the real war crimes.

                    For example, it's okay to butcher 160 Iranian school girls because Iran just butchered 100,000 innocent protestors in a single day (trust me bro).

          • China is more capitalist than the USA these days
  • jschrfa day ago
    Canada shouldn't include Palantir at all.
    • gatvola day ago
      Why not?
      • ronsora day ago
        America shouldn't even include Palantir.
      • free_bipa day ago
        It's pretty obvious this comment didn't come from a Canadian. Because if it was, you'd know that Palantir is elbow-deep in the Trump administration, the same one that has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. That is not a threat to be taken lightly, and the Canadian public agrees, which is why the trump-opposing Liberal party is currently enjoying a parliamentary majority. A more relevant question would be "Why would anyone with Canada's interests in mind even consider Palantir in the first place?"
        • thaumasiotesa day ago
          > Palantir is elbow-deep in the Trump administration, the same one that has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. That is not a threat to be taken lightly, and the Canadian public agrees

          Are they making any preparations for war, at all, that they weren't also doing in 2021?

          • epistasisa day ago
            Did the US make any preparations for war before abducting Maduro from Venezuela or before getting into a war with Iran that cost them freedom of passage in the Strait of Hormuz?

            Right up until Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia maintained that, no, that troop buildup wasn't meant as an invasion force, and a good chunk of the world believed Russia because it was a moronic idea to invade Ukraine. Trump is far more moronic and power drunk than Putin, and would perhaps not even organize troops befre invading Canada, all because somebody in the inner circle goaded Trump into it.

            • thaumasiotes30 minutes ago
              What do you think your comment has to do with mine?
          • mikem170a day ago
            I'd say yes. Things like increased military spending (2% of gdp, largest since the end of the cold war), buying more non-US weapon systems (like Saab's GlobalEye, instead of US AWACS), exploring other alliances (with Europe and China), and lessoning dependencies on US companies (like Palantir).

            Are you thinking that the Candian public doesn't care about Trump's annexation threats?

            • thaumasiotesa day ago
              I'm thinking that they care in only the most minor ways imaginable, yes. They find the threats offensive, but not threatening.
          • jmyea day ago
            [flagged]
            • thaumasiotesa day ago
              Assuming the answer is "no", that is sufficient to demonstrate that the Canadian public sees the threat as one to be taken lightly, and indeed one to which the most appropriate reaction is to ignore it.
              • jeromegva day ago
                Ah yes.. the threat to invade us... should be taken lightly. Right. We should fall in line, let them bully us, do nothing, keep sending our money there.

                I'm sure that your dear leader would also take lightly any threat of invasion against the United States.

                • thaumasiotesa day ago
                  You're taking it lightly right now. If you believe it isn't something to be taken lightly, why do your actions contradict your beliefs so badly?
      • antonvsa day ago
        Because it’s a company with no ethics beyond “might makes right,” owned by a person of dubious sanity who travels around the world to warn anyone who’ll listen about how the Antichrist is bad for their business.

        Why would anyone in their right minds do business with a company like that?

        • kingofmena day ago
          To be fair the Antichrist, being a prophesied entity from several millennia ago, is probably not super up to date on twenty-first-century business best practices. They probably still use waterfall.
          • brooksta day ago
            There is a fantastic book to be written about the Antichrist finally rising to lay waste to the world, only to be astounded by air travel, the internet, etc. A demonic horde of a thousand flaming knights riding through Rome is largely written off as a new burning man thing, etc.
            • antonvsa day ago
              Are you familiar with Pratchett & Gaiman's "Good Omens" (book and TV series)? It has a certain amount of that general spirit.
      • jmyea day ago
        [flagged]
  • ClearwayLawa day ago
    Instead, buy domestic product, and out in the open.
    • a day ago
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    • autoexeca day ago
      Better yet, build a domestic product for government use and tightly regulate and oversee it so that you can be sure it's being used lawfully, only when needed for government use, and only when necessary. Democratic nations have power over their government but not over corporations. I know which one I'd rather have ruling over me and spying on my every move.
      • Exoristosa day ago
        > ... build a domestic product for government use and tightly regulate and oversee it ...

        Government to tightly regulate and oversee itself, I perceive.

        > Democratic nations have power over their government but not over corporations.

        Democratic governments and corporations have been around about as many centuries, and both have long ago perfected techniques to make sure the people have no direct power over either of them, often in tandem. That said, it seems remarkable that you're less anxious about the partner in this age-old dance that has the warplanes and myriads of armed enforcers.

        • autoexeca day ago
          In my country more people are killed by corporations than by their government's "warplanes and myriads of armed enforcers". Corporations have literally poisoned you and your entire family already. They've contaminated every living creature on earth and every source of water. Even the rain that falls is no longer safe to drink. (https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals...) No one has spent even one day in jail for it. You can't vote them out of power.
  • jmyeeta day ago
    I don't think there's a government in the world, including the US, that should allow Palantir anywhere near their data or systems. I consider Palantir a national security threat. I also feel this way about McKinsey (and Bain, BCG, etc).

    I also think any form of platform AI usage to be a national security threat in the absence of stringent controls over that data and the platform. At some point I think governments and companies will wake up to this and demand local LLMs or, in the very least, a cloud platform within their jurisdiction, ownership and control.

    The 1980s and 1990s ushered in this idea of "small government", privatization and public-private partnerships that I think was a huge mistake with catastrophic consequences. It's simply letting the foxes into the hen house. It leads to regulatory capture, a revolving door and a massive government-to-private wealth transfer.

    What's funny is that a lot of this stems from a now throughly debunked idea of the "tragedy of the commons" [1].

    [1]: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/03...

  • nickdothutton21 hours ago
    I don't think the Canadian government is dropping a big contract on a company that is 24 months old vs one 24 years old, more or less.
  • another_twist20 hours ago
    Wtf does Palantir have to do with AI. Nobody at Palantir can train an LLM from scratch or even fine tune.
  • altmanaltmana day ago
    I mean no public strategy should include secret bills, Palantir or no Palantir.

    If you're idealogically opposed to Palantir, how will a home-grown Palantir help? It would likely do the same things Palantir does but with a Canadian Alex Karp

    • gpma day ago
      Well there's a clear difference between a creepy company spying on you and a creepy company closely aligned with a government that has threatened to annex you spying on you.

      Neither are great, but one is worse.

    • dreambuffera day ago
      There likely isn't a Canadian Alex Karp. Karp is a unique byproduct of American culture. The specific brand of arrogance, hunger for war, and callous disregard for human life, all in service of a right wing ideological project, is simply not as present in Canada because Canada is a middle power with more liberal values who prefer diplomacy over war.
      • constantius17 hours ago
        He fills a niche, particularly successfully ,but the required substrate exists in every society. In societies that superficially reward other qualities, these people mold themselves to fill other niches that provide power: politics, tech, press. When the niche appears in Canada, or Germany, or the UK, these people will come out of the woodworks wearing whatever face they need to at the time.

        Granted, America's been leading on encouraging the worse angels of our nature for the last, what, 70 years? But these personalities exist everywhere.

      • somenameformea day ago
        I think you can't really measure a country's approach to war unless that country is already quite powerful. This is the reason that it's said that power corrupts. It's easy to have good values when it's difficult to have bad values, or there is minimal benefit to such. But give a man (or country) tremendous power, and suddenly having bad values can be immensely rewarding on short to medium time scales.
      • bluefirebranda day ago
        I appreciate that you think so highly of Canada, but no. There are still plenty of people that fit that description born in Canada.

        I think the main thing is they all move to California or New York as soon as they can, because they can't achieve their sociopath ambitions as easily here.

  • crimsoneer12 hours ago
    The idea we're going to stop people like special forces and intelligence buying the software they want to run on on prem, air gapped stacks that they control in the name of sovereignty is silly.
  • bamei8aia day ago
    [dead]
  • tamimioa day ago
    The sovereign initiative in Canada is laughable, most if not all critical infrastructure are 100% relying on US cloud products, from the usuals like MS and google all the way to cybersecurity and other products, and we are not even talking about supply chains and the likes. So practically speaking, the US can in a click, turn off Canada’s grid and banking, in minutes without a single bullet, the country will collapse. That’s why whenever I see all that buzz words of “sovereign xyz” I know it’s a just a way to funnel tax money back to some companies or programs, without having so much questions about it.
    • Waterluviana day ago
      Step by step we need to de-Americanize, for sure. Can’t just happen overnight.
      • tamimioa day ago
        There’re no steps taken, when I brought it to different managers in both utilities and banking, they laughed and some even rolled their eyes, because everything (and I mean everything from operations to hr to all) is built on top of these products, no way to rebuild the multi billions company from scratch and train the employees on a whole new systems only to find out they are not reliable or at least not how they used to do their work.

        For example in some power utility companies, to install few auxiliary sensors to monitor xyz only in a pilot project is a 3 years work.. upgrading old 3G modems is done in stages over years just not to interrupt the operations, and all of these are terminal devices, not core or servers where a tiny mistake in that foundation migration will send the city into dark ages.

        • righthanda day ago
          You can throw a rock and hit another company (for example, HR/Payroll companies), these aren't exactly industry secrets that can’t be swapped out. Half of the IT depts current existence is replacing systems software just because “hip new thing”.
  • thesmtsolver2a day ago
    Canada and Europe call for banning American companies in their the name of sovereignty: upvoted and praised as necessary

    America tries that for valid reasons (unfair subsidies, human or labor rights violations, BYD): get called fascist or stupid

    • protocolturea day ago
      Canada and Europe call for banning American companies in their the name of America Threatening to go apeshit and do stupid stuff: upvoted and praised as necessary.

      America tries that for stupid xenophobic reasons, gets called stupid or xenophobic.

      • brooksta day ago
        Yes, intent matters. Call the police on the crack house next door, neighbors celebrate you. Call the police to harass the Black people door, neighbors shun you.

        This shouldn’t be surprising.

  • userbinatora day ago
    What a title. I misread and thought an "AI Vigier" was an official tasked with being vigilant about AI.
  • freakynita day ago
    Palantir is giving me "Samaritan" vibes from the show: "Person of Interest".

    For the ones who haven't watched this amazing show, here is a small Google AI summary:

    Samaritan is the primary antagonist of the later seasons of the sci-fi series Person of Interest. It is a fictional, totalitarian artificial superintelligence created by Arthur Claypool. Unlike its counterpart, the Machine, Samaritan has no moral constraints, viewing human free will as a flaw requiring aggressive control and mass surveillance

  • maxdoa day ago
    Canada and domestic product simply not possible The only two countries who can run domestic products of this kind are USA and China . The rest is just gimmick or a lie.
    • bigyabaia day ago
      Palantir's software stack is not really that complex, and their FDE workforce is famously... undereducated. Canada should be able to pull it off, there's much to improve on.
      • nradova day ago
        If that's true then why hasn't Canada managed to produce a credible competitor already? What are they missing? Will the opportunity to win domestic government contracts change that situation or are there other obstacles?
        • Because govtech is notoriously difficult to break in to.
          • nradova day ago
            How did Palantir break in? What's preventing a Canadian competitor from doing the same?
            • maximilianburke17 hours ago
              Time, money, and size.

              Government procurement takes a lot of time to see through to completion; Palantir is not a new company, they're over 20 years old now. To succeed you also need money for lobbyists; regardless of what you feel of them they are a necessary part of the system. Also at the government level, especially at the level of federal governments, you are competing with Oracle, IBM, and other similarly large companies which is difficult to do if you are a new, small company.

            • bluefirebranda day ago
              Lack of investment probably. No one is investing in Canadian companies. A stupid amount of Canadian investment is in America or overseas, very little is domestic
              • miesesa day ago
                Canada should make some rules to fix the lack of investment. If Canadians were not allowed to invest in American companies the problem would be solved.
            • bigyabaia day ago
              > How did Palantir break in?

              Peter Thiel abusing government backchannels.

              > What's preventing a Canadian competitor from doing the same?

              A lack of access to corrupt government backchannels.

        • gloryjulioa day ago
          Canada do have an ai company Cohere that has potential to be big. Personally I do think they are one of the credible competitors.
          • maxdoa day ago
            are you seriously believe in that? when was last time they produced a model, that is at least in top 20?
            • mitthrowaway2a day ago
              Remind me which of Palantir's models would it be competing with?
            • dreambuffera day ago
              You know Palantir is not an LLM company, right? Their core product is just data integration systems.
              • maxdo10 hours ago
                it is not an llm company, but it's part of independent ecosystem. one of two. canada is not part of it. it's part of very dependent ecosystem. isn't that 2+2?
            • gloryjulioa day ago
              I think they are in b2b enterprise model space. Privacy is way more important. Not sure if Sota models are needed.
        • maxdoa day ago
          we are talking about LLM+hardware.

          You as canada have only two options:

          1) use closed sourced systems

          2) use chinese models, with their own risks

          3) hardware, i think it's clear.

          Cohere is not even in the list of top competitors .

      • ihswa day ago
        You overestimate the willingness of Canadian software engineer employers to pay anything beyond peanuts.

        Any competent developer already immediately flees to the US to triple their take-home pay at first chance and Canadian employers are fully aware of this.

        • mitthrowaway2a day ago
          I know lots of competent developers in Canada. Some better than any I have yet met in the Bay area. They know they could triple their income by moving to the US, but they have other attachments, priorities, and concerns.

          Lots do move to the US too, but it's a filter for ambition, not competence. Don't confuse the two.

        • tamimioa day ago
          They didn’t pay well before the AI hype, now software developers are seen far worse. The other day I was looking at embedded/robotics engineers jobs in canada, the salaries are CAD$60k to CAD$90k (far less than USD for who doesn’t know), and the job description I swear is enough to send rockets to the space, what an absolute joke. Meanwhile in the US they are paid $250k USD, with defined scope (say only vision or autonomy). Canada is a based on service economy, nursing or plumbing or similar will make better than staff software engineers, hell, a heavy equipment operator who moves few joysticks and listens to music all day make CAD$115k and unionized too.. and the delusionals think that will replace US decades of investment in tech industry while dancing to “elbows up!” in a festival.

          The only way is Canada joining the EU in making their own tech, but even then, this will take at least a decade to materialize, if any, don’t forget all infrastructure hardware is still US, hp/dell/nvidia/etc plus decades of software and OSes, so yeah.