Palantir and Anduril Form AI Consortium for US National Security, Raising Ethical Concerns

Palantir and Anduril have teamed up to 'ensure the US government leads the world in artificial intelligence' and this is what happens when LOTR fans get to name companies

I've never been that much of a Tolkien buff, but even I know a Lord of the Rings reference when I see one. Gundalf, Bilbao, and Legsolarse are much beloved characters for many of you (I'm told), so an exciting partnership between Palantir and Anduril should be right up your street. Okay, perhaps not quite this pairing, but a team up between a top analytics outfit and an autonomous defence systems vendor has real-world implications that might be worth paying attention to regardless. Palantir Technologies specialises in software platforms for big data analytics, while Anduril is a US defence technology company with the stated mission of "transforming defence capabilities with advanced technology." Together they've announced a new consortium to "ensure that the US government leads the world in artificial intelligence" (via The Register). Exactly what that means is hidden among an impressive array of corpo-speak, but there's some language here that instinctively makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. "We will utilize Anduril's Lattice software system and the Anduril Menace family of deployable compute and communications systems to instrument the tactical edge for the government's secure, large-scale data retention and distribution. "Lattice connects directly with third-party defense systems at the edge, delivers autonomy to machine operations, securely distributes their information across a large-scale data mesh, and backhauls all tactical data into government enclaves for the purposes of AI training and inferencing. Menace devices are also purpose-built for the tactical edge, customized down to the silicon level for the unique requirements of national security operations in tactical environments -- including, soon, next-generation encryption." With the best will in the world, calling one of your systems "Menace", as a defence company, doesn't strike as particularly great optics. Anyway, the gist of the partnership is that there are supposedly two limiting factors to adopting AI for national security purposes: Data readiness, and secure enterprise pipelines to "turn that data into AI capabilities." To solve this, Anduril's systems will connect to third-party defence systems and gather data, before Palantir's AI platform structures and labels it for AI training, while also providing a secure pipeline to deploy AI models into national security systems. That's a lot of "systems", I know, but parsing and simplifying this sort of doublespeak seems like the kind of job that a machine learning model would actually be better at than me. In the Tolkienverse, a palantír is an indestructible crystal ball used for communication and to see events in the past, the same kind that cheeky hobbit Poppin uses to gaze into the eye of Soorun (I'll stop it now) before Gandalf snatches it away from him and gives an appropriate scolding. Andúril, meanwhile, is the name of Aragorn's gigantic sword, reforged from the shards of Narsil and also referred to as the "Flame of the West." Which, given the context, seems somewhat appropriate. Or slightly terrifying, you pick. Anyway, this is what happens when grown nerds start naming companies after objects from their favourite universes, so I look forward to writing about future team-ups between Death Star Enterprises, Phaser Corp., and the Infinity Stone Institute. What a world, eh? Oh, and if I've got any of the LOTR lore here wrong, feel free to write in to any of my editors at... actually, on second thoughts, don't. It probably wouldn't be appreciated.

Palantir and Anduril form partnership, as Sauron funded

Two tech businesses that were independently named after objects from The Lord of the Rings have formed a partnership - or should that be a fellowship? According to a Friday announcement, analytics outfit Palantir and autonomous systems vendor Anduril have formed "a new consortium to ensure that the US government leads the world in artificial intelligence" and "deliver the technological infrastructure, from the edge to the enterprise, that can enable our government and industry partners to transform America's world-leading AI advancements into next-generation military and national security capabilities." Tolkien aficionados among you may recall from your knowledge of Middle Earth that a "Palantir" - or "seeing stone" - is a crystal orb that allows wonky real-time communication between devices, with users able to view those who use other stones, divine something of their mental state, and even view past events. If you're not a Tolkien reader, think of it as a kind of magical proto-Zoom with telepathic and time travel modules available on some licenses. "Anduril" was the name given to the re-forged sword "Narsil," which was broken in battle before Isildur took up its shards and used them to cut the One Ring from the hand of Sauron - setting in train the events eventually chronicled in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. The word "Anduril" literally means "Flame of the West" in Tolkien's invented Elvish tongue Quenya. The Register fancies the founders of Anduril - the business - knew that when they chose the name, given its focus on US national security. Palantir's name is also likely no accident, given the stones allowed perception of far-off locations and the ability to divine users' intentions - the kind of analytics Palantir the company promises it can deliver. Anduril and Palantir will work together to solve "two main problems that limit the adoption of AI for national security purposes." The first of these is that the US military is not retaining sensor data collected by vehicles and weapons that could be used to train AI. "Exabytes of defense data, indispensable for AI training and inferencing, are currently evaporating. What should be America's ultimate asymmetric advantage over our adversaries is instead our biggest lost opportunity," the partners state in their announcement. The other issue is the lack of a secure enterprise pipeline that would allow use of that data to create AIs. The combined entities plan to combine some of their products to address the issues. News of the Tolkien-themed tie-up came a day after The Washington Post reported that a startup named Sauron has won $18 million in funding for a home security system aimed at the wealthy. In Tolkien's mythology, Sauron is the embodiment of evil on Earth and in The Lord of the Rings manifests as an enormous, fiery, all-seeing eye. Sauron, the startup, apparently makes "deterrence pods" that contain drones capable of detecting anyone who approaches a location where they are installed - scanning their faces, and shining a searchlight on anything the system deems suspicious. The Register very much wants these businesses to succeed and start acquiring each other so we can write stories with headlines like "Palantir's Sauron acquisition severed by Anduril." ®