Richard Boyd Barrett Warns Against Profit-Driven AI and Palantir
Richard Boyd Barrett warned about the societal risks of digital technology, arguing it can be used for harm as well as benefit and that control should lie with ordinary working people. He criticised companies supplying technology used to target and kill people, cited Palantir by name, and raised concerns about impacts on workers and the arts.
Most technology can be used either to benefit human beings or it can be used for malign purposes, Richard Boyd Barrett said, urging caution about the motives of those who control powerful digital tools.
He invoked Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times as a satire of industrial technology that deepened exploitation, using the film to draw parallels with contemporary digital tech that can turn people into machines for profit.
He singled out the company Palantir, noting its role in providing digital technology to identify so-called terrorists and to kill people for the US military and for the Israeli military, and argued the company's name - taken from Lord of the Rings - should have been an alarm bell because it evokes Sauron's all-seeing stone.
He warned that, in the arts industry, copies and avatars are already replacing writers, performers and directors, and expressed deep suspicion of technologies controlled primarily for profit rather than social benefit.
He called for centring control of digital technology to benefit ordinary working people rather than leaving it in the hands of those making vast profits and indifferent to the future of the planet and working people.
Technology's double edge
Most technology can be used either to benefit human beings or it can be used for malign purposes, Richard Boyd Barrett said, urging caution about the motives of those who control powerful digital tools.
Chaplin reference and industrial critique
He invoked Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times as a satire of industrial technology that deepened exploitation, using the film to draw parallels with contemporary digital tech that can turn people into machines for profit.
Palantir and the Sauron analogy
He singled out the company Palantir, noting its role in providing digital technology to identify so-called terrorists and to kill people for the US military and for the Israeli military, and argued the company's name - taken from Lord of the Rings - should have been an alarm bell because it evokes Sauron's all-seeing stone.
Risk to artists and workers
He warned that, in the arts industry, copies and avatars are already replacing writers, performers and directors, and expressed deep suspicion of technologies controlled primarily for profit rather than social benefit.
Demand for democratic control of technology
He called for centring control of digital technology to benefit ordinary working people rather than leaving it in the hands of those making vast profits and indifferent to the future of the planet and working people.
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Transcript
Most technology can be used either to benefit human beings or it can be used for malign purposes. And I do not trust the people who control this technology or the people who dominate the political scene in most of the world to use this technology to the benefit of society. One of the best films that's ever been made in my opinion, if you haven't watched it you should watch it, is Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times where he brilliantly satirises the impact of Fordist technology, industrial technology to exploit, to deepen the exploitation of human beings and turn human beings into machines purely to be exploited by greedy capitalists. And the danger that he alluded to in that brilliant film remains with us today. There's a deputy who was elected to this house and had to be suspended from his party because he was associated with and a shareholder in a company called Palantir that was providing digital technology to kill people and identify so-called terrorists for the US military and for the Israeli military. And one of the things I just thought people should consider about this company, because digital technology we know of course can benefit people, but in this case is used to target people and kill them, including during the genocide in Palestine over the last year and a half, is the name of the company. And the name of the company Palantir, should have rung a few alarm bells, comes from Lord of the Rings and it's the seeing stone of the Dark Lord Sauron who is the evil character and is used to see everything and manipulate people to the benefit of the Dark Lord. Now imagine the people who set up that company using that name for the company, they knew setting up that company what they were doing, that it was literally for evil purposes, because why else would they name the company after the all-seeing eye of the Dark Lord Sauron? And unfortunately there's a lot of these people in the world, and they don't care about the benefits to society, they certainly don't care about workers, artists, performers, writers, directors and so on are rightly very worried already what's happening in the arts industry about essentially copies of them being made so that they are moved out of the process and replaced with machines that are replaced with machines that are replaced and replaced with machines that are using their avatars to produce art, writing and so on. So while this technology is controlled by people who are only interested in profit, I would be deeply suspicious about it. And what we need to centre ground is the control of this technology to benefit ordinary working people, not have it in the hands or have a government that is being led by people who are making vast profits out of this technology. And don't give a damn frankly about the future of our planet or about working people.