Tag: Sue Ann Martinson

Palantir’s AI: Targeted Killing

By Sue Ann Martinson, Editor /  Wings of Change /  August 7,  2026 

Palantir Technologies is a U.S.-based software company specializing in centralizing large amounts of data using artificial intelligence (AI). Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel (Board Chair), Alex Karp (CEO), Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings, the company headquarters are in Miami Florida. 

Editor’s Note: Palantir has its tentacles into many areas, including ICE targeting, data centers, and private data including of voting rolls, healthcare information, and more. The main focus of this article is on Palantir’s involvement in working with the military in the Iran war and to some extent in general.

For a link to local action in MN see the RELATED section later in this post. Information for an August 28 panel by DIVESTMN will examine “How MN Money is Funding Palantir’s Deadly Surveillance Network.”

Palantir Software Structure

I am hardly a tech expert and even less do I know much about how AI works. I think of these platforms as layers of software with new layers built out from and integrated with the initial software developed by Palantir. For example, the Maven software platform is dependent on the Palantir program Foundry, which handles large-scale data integration and transformation. Also another Palantir software, Gotham, is used by government, defense, and intelligence agencies for intelligence analysis and operations. These are only a few of Palantir’s software platforms.

Maven Smart System: Automated Recognition

Palantir’s role is concerned with direct combat and use of intelligence systems such as Project Maven. Founded in 2017, Maven uses AI to analyze drone and satellite imagery for automated target recognition. It is able to pinpoint individual targets with accuracy and speed. Initially, it held contracts with the U.S. government along with Google. After Google employees objected to its use on the grounds that it was dangerous Google withdrew, while Palantir retained its contract. What makes it so frightening is that it can be used without human approval once set in motion: The automated capability makes Maven especially dangerous.

As noted, it is the integration of the software as it analyzes the data that allows for quick analysis of possible targets. What used to take up to six months to analyze now is immediate. Palantir can thus quickly find and attack defined targets. Palantir’s Maven is being used by not only the US but also by Israel for targets in Lebanon and Gaza,

Basically Maven’s use is a significant structural change in that it gathers enormous amounts data from many sources such as satellites, drones, and radars, centralizes and speedily analyzes them. It’s use also signals a cultural change because it incorporates artificial intelligence into decision-making. “What previously required hours and even months of analysis is now resolved ln seconds.”

In the first targeted direct strike on Iran on February 26, 2026 that signaled US entry into the war Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was murdered, along with other Iranian officials, in a joint targeted U.S/Israeli airstrike on his compound in Tehran. As the war has continued, more targeted areas within Iran have been bombed. Most tragic and controversial is the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School girls’ school on February 28, 2026, when 175 staff and mostly children, more than 100 ages 7 to 12, were murdered. Technology from Palantir’s Maven platform was used along with technology from Claude, a project of the corporation Anthropic. 

The US administration had restricted the use of certain AI platforms such as Palantir’s Maven due to security concerns, requiring human approval of strikes. Despite known concerns, approval was given for the school bombing.

According to Amnesty International, the girls’ school was struck as part of an attack on 12 other structures in the adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound, raising serious concerns that the compound may have been targeted based on outdated intelligence, as the compound was no longer being used. CNN reported that AI technology was utilized.

Continued use of artificial intelligence magnifies the risk of such failures. In this situation, faulty AI information was blamed. However, that begs the question of human approval. Because Maven includes the ability as noted above of automated target recognition information it is to be examined by a US military officer or officers to grant final human permission to order a strike. But as Amnesty International notes, whether the error was Palantir’s or Anthropic’s (the other AI corporation involved) there were clear questions about accuracy of information: That raises the issue of human error for future use of AI to identify targets no matter what corporate technology is used.

The Pentagon’s current policy on lethal autonomy does not address AI decision-support systems (AI-DSS), which are now operational and shape lethal decision-making in ways that can introduce errors, bias, and escalation risks in U.S. military operations.

Existing legal and policy frameworks have not kept pace with these operational realities, leaving a critical gap in ensuring that AI-DSS are secure, reliable, and subject to meaningful oversight. AI-DSS rely in part on commercial frontier AI models — including Anthropic’s model Claude, which is reportedly integrated into Palantir’s Maven Smart System — that may not have been tested and evaluated sufficiently for security and reliability.

Adversarial compromise, corrupt or outdated data, and misalignment in these systems can propagate directly into use-of-force decisions, resulting in target misidentification, increased collateral damage, or unintended escalation, even where a human remains formally in control.

Initially targets were categorized as military. That guideline has now been seriously violated as the US aims at nonmilitary Iranian targets. According to Al Jazeera there have also been more than 20 strikes on nonmilitary Iranian healthcare targets since the first of March. As the bombing continues Al Jazeera also reports the targeting and bombing of universities and other nonmilitary targets.

On February 26, 2026 an article appeared on OpinioJuris (two days before the bombing of the girls’ school) that framed the issue between Anthropic and the Department of Defense (DOD). indicating that the issue was already being discussed and predicting that what was at state was not a “spat” but a consequential “legal and ethical test” for the future that clearly has not been resolved:

What may appear, at first glance, to be a contractual spat between a technology provider and its government client is, in fact, emerging as a far more consequential legal and ethical stress test for the future and limits of AI-enabled warfare.

…the battle over AI in war is not theoretical, academic or confined to the halls of diplomatic negotiation…it’s playing out in real time with huge implications.  …some states will likely attempt to keep the status quo, others will attempt to propose guardrails and draw lines. Whether those lines are created and held, and whether they are respected and for how long and by whom, will have profound effects on the future of warfare, the protection of civilians, and more broadly on civil liberties and global governance.

Increased demand by activists for AI guidelines has proved that legal and ethical stress tests are increasingly being called for in all areas regarding the use of AI. On July 29, 2026 President Trump made a statement regarding AI guidelines jn relation to the military: “Trump weighs tighter AI controls but warns against falling behind China. The president warned the U.S. must balance AI safety with maintaining its technological lead over China.” In other words, with the usual waffling non-answer. US hegemony and empire are most important; other areas may require AI guidelines but the military is exempt. As is always true, being Number One is most important to Trump, nor does he recognize that the US empire is already in decline. The Trump regime warped view thinks that military power alone can save the empire, as personified in Trump’s” strong man” image he so enjoys wallowing in.

Culpability

The U.S./Israel and Donald Trump should not have started this war with Iran in the first place. The war has expanded with estimated millions of dollars  spent to date. Iran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, which includes moving 20 percent of the world’s oil but also other significant products such as fertilizers that effect the world’s food growth, has proved disastrous and has global effects.

It has raised havoc not only in the Middle East but globally because of the blockage of oil and other commodities through the Strait of Hormuz. Israel continues to attack Lebanon and Gaza, and the U.S. has attacked Somalia with its strategic location in the Horn of Africa. People are dying and losing their homes as millions of refugees have resulted from these wars. The men in the Trump Regime—who are running the show along with the corporations (especially the gas and oil corporations and the war industry)—are obsessed with power and with the military. Palantir CEO Alex Karp, in an interview on December 3, 2025, reveals his obsession with and glorification of the military and war. Use of Palantir military software platforms, especially Maven, is making hundreds of millions of dollars for Palantir, millions of the estimated money spent to date on what has turned into a Middle East war.

These conferences, designed specifically for people involved in AI technology, may pose problems and perhaps solutions as the ongoing controversies over AI and AI guidelines continue. Unfortunately, at the same time the Trump regime continues to ignore the UN processes (like the ICC declaration of Genocide in Gaza) as the rogue administration under Trump and his cohorts like Stephen Miller and others continue to act with the lack of accountability of the US military as represented by them: Robert Reich sums it up in three words: “the war, the economy, the corruption.” Sadly it is deeply embedded among the fascist “ruling elite” who cannot see beyond the ends of their lying noses. Like Pinocchio, the more lies they tell the longer their noses get and the irises of their eyes have turned into dollar signs.

The UN holds a yearly conference on AI security and ethics. In 2025 they discussed how current humanitarian laws intersect with AI. Click here for the full 2025 conference.

A second conference on AI Security took place on June 18-19 2026 in Geneva.

The challenge before us is no longer whether AI will influence international peace and security, but how we shape that influence. The pace of technological change is outstripping many existing governance frameworks. Bringing together diverse perspectives is essential to better understand emerging risks, identify opportunities, and strengthen international cooperation.

Dr. Robin Geiss, UNIDIR Director

To access the full conference click here.

Palantir will continue to glorify the US military and participate in war. The Trump regime will continue to deny the rule of law, the US Constitution, and any “laws they don’t like.” Trump will continue to attack journalists and the media (especially women journalists). including The New York Times. that writes or says anything negative about him or his policies until they are stopped.

RELATED

Note that Palantir is often in the news in some form or another. Also note that this post is mostly concerned with the military uses of Palantir software which is not covered as often as some of its other projects. The following panel by DIVESTMN will examine “How MN Money is Funding Palantir’s Deadly Surveillance Network”

Previous

“Palantir Exposed: The New Deep State and The TRUTH About Palantir CEO Alex Karp”, as Glenn Greenwald explains the political philosophy of both Thiel and Karp, Palantir founders.

Palantir Publishes Weird Manifesto for AI World  Apr 21, 2026

Palantir Manifesto  Full Text

Why Palantir is America’s Most Dangerous Corporation 12/2/25 Robert Reich on Inequality Media