Tech firm Palantir spoke with MoJ about calculating prisoners’ ‘reoffending risks’
The US spy tech company Palantir has been in talks with the Ministry of Justice about using its technology to calculate prisoners’ “reoffending risks”, it has emerged,The proposals emerged in correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act which showed how the company has also been lobbying new UK government ministers, including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves,Amnesty International is among the organisations expressing concern about the expanding role Palantir is attempting to carve out after it was controversially awarded a multimillion-pound contract with the NHS last year,The prisons minister, James Timpson, received a letter three weeks after the general election from a Palantir executive who said the firm was one of the world’s leading software companies, and was working at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI),Palantir had been in talks with the MoJ and the Prison Service about how “secure information sharing and data analytics can alleviate prison challenges and enable a granular understanding of reoffending and associated risks”, the executive added.
The discussions, which started under the Conservative government, are understood to have included proposals by Palantir to analyse prison capacity, and to use data held by the state to understand trends relating to reoffending,This would be based on aggregating data to identify and act on trends, factoring in drivers such as income or addiction problems,Lord Timpson did not respond to the letter,A Palantir spokesperson said: “Advanced software that automatically integrates data could provide a single, constantly updating source of truth for prison capacity across the UK – helping to maximise the use of finite prison spaces,This kind of solution has parallels with how our software supported the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, where it provided a clear, real-time picture of takeup at a local, regional and national level.
”However, Amnesty International UK’s business and human rights director, Peter Frankental, has expressed concern.“It’s deeply worrying that Palantir is trying to seduce the new government into a so-called brave new world where public services may be run by unaccountable bots at the expense of our rights,” he said.“Labour faces the serious challenge of ensuring digital technologies are used in line with human rights, including protecting people’s privacy, right to equality, non-discrimination and data protection.“Ministers need to push back against any use of artificial intelligence in the criminal justice, prison and welfare systems that could lead to people being discriminated against, unfairly targeted and other miscarriages of justice.The Post Office scandal is a stark warning of what can happen when digital technologies are considered infallible.
”Concerns about Palantir have been compounded by the political role played by its co-founder and chair, Peter Thiel, a major Silicon Valley supporter of Donald Trump, as well as a backer and former employer of the vice-president-elect, JD Vance,Thiel once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,”Other letters released to the Guardian reveal that Palentir’s co-founder and chief executive, Alexander Karp, wrote to ministers including Reeves, asking to meet to discuss how to help drive growth and use of its products at government departments,Karp is a self-described “socialist” but has spoken of Palantir being a counter to “woke” companies and is known for making provocative statements, claiming the company believed “the west is a superior way to live”,This was reflected in a letter Karp wrote to the science minister, Peter Kyle, telling him: “Our company was founded to help strengthen critical institutions across the west.
”Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionAs with Reeves, Karp sought to meet Kyle to discuss “harnessing AI to deliver the next generation of technology-enabled public services across HMG”.Karp told Reeves that the company employed nearly 1,000 software engineers in London, its European office for AI, and anticipated opening another office elsewhere in Britain soon.Palantir wrote to other ministers including the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, and the trade minister Douglas Alexander.Kyle and Reeves have not met Palantir during their time as ministers, according to the government, while other ministers lobbied by the company do not appear to have responded.Others in Labour have been deeply uneasy about the company’s links with the party, particularly with its Blairite wing.
The Labour backbencher Clive Lewis said he was concerned that “big corporate entities” such as Palantir were trying to become integral parts of providing public services.“We are inviting in a highly extractive corporate entity which is always going to act in its own interests first, not what would ultimately be the interests of the NHS or other public services.You can go down a science-fiction route but iyou ultimately where will it leave us?” Lewis said.“It feels to me as if there is pressure for this Labour government to deliver growth at all costs.My fear is that it will lead us into taking shortcuts to deliver that growth at a rapid rate and we may regret what we have done.
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US justice department plans to push Google to sell off Chrome browser
US justice department officials plan to ask a judge to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser to dismantle the monopoly it has over the internet search market, in a major intervention against one of the world’s biggest tech companies.The Department of Justice (DoJ) last month filed court papers saying it was considering enforcing “structural remedies” to prevent Google from using some its products.The DoJ will reportedly push for Google, which is owned by Alphabet, to sell the browser and also ask a judge to require new measures related to artificial intelligence as well as its Android smartphone operating system, according to Bloomberg.Competition officials, along with a number of US states that have joined the case against the Silicon Valley company, also plan to recommend that the federal judge Amit Mehta imposes data licensing requirements.Google has said it will challenge any case by the DoJ and said the proposals marked an “overreach” by the government that would harm consumers
TechScape: Betting markets come for everything – and the FBI comes for a betting market
Gambling on the outcome of the presidential election became legal in the US at the start of October after decades of prohibition, becoming a new type of pre-election poll. Online prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket accepted billions of dollars in wagers on the outcome, with their users favoring Donald Trump with a 70% chance of beating Kamala Harris, out of sync with mainstream polls. Trump’s camp trumpeted the predictions.In the UK, election gambling is legal and takes a very different form. Traditional bookmakers and betting firms take players’ wagers and set prices and odds
Meta pushes AI bid for UK public sector forward with technology aimed at NHS
Meta’s push to deploy its artificial intelligence system inside Britain’s public sector has taken a step forward after the tech giant awarded development funding to technology aimed at shortening NHS A&E waiting times.Amid rival efforts by Silicon Valley tech companies to work with national and local government, Meta ran its first “hackathon” in Europe asking more than 200 programmers to devise ways to use its Llama AI system in UK public services and, one senior Meta executive said, “focused on the priorities of the Labour party”.The event came after it emerged that Palantir, another US tech company, has been lobbying the Ministry of Justice and government ministers including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Microsoft also recently agreed a five-year deal with Whitehall departments to supply its AI Copilot technology to civil servants.Meta’s hackathon was addressed by Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister and now Meta’s president of global affairs based in California
AI cloning of celebrity voices outpacing the law, experts warn
It’s the new badge of celebrity status that nobody wants. Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey and Kylie Jenner have all had their voices cloned by fraudsters. Online blaggers used artificial intelligence to fake the Tiggerish tones of Martin Lewis, the TV financial adviser. And this weekend David Attenborough described himself as “profoundly disturbed” to have discovered that his cloned voice had been used to deliver partisan US news bulletins.Now experts have warned that voice-cloning is outpacing the law as technologists hone previously clunky voice generators into models capable of emulating the subtlest pauses and breathing of human intonation
Roblox to give parents more control over children’s activity after warnings over grooming
The fast-growing children’s gaming platform Roblox is to hand parents greater oversight of their children’s activity and restrict the youngest users from the more violent, crude and scary content after warnings about child grooming, exploitation and sharing of indecent images.From Monday, Roblox will grant parents access to a dashboard on their own phone showing who their child is interacting with, how long they are spending on Roblox each day and to make sure they are accurately recording their age.It will also restrict users under nine to games rated “mild”, with access to “moderate” content allowed only with parental approval. Mild content might involve “unrealistic blood or unrealistic violence” whereas the blood would look realistic for moderate violence.Preteens will also be blocked from chat functions outside of games as part of a worldwide tightening of the rules on the most visited online destination among British eight- to 12-year-olds after Google, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, and TikTok
AI could cause ‘social ruptures’ between people who disagree on its sentience
Significant “social ruptures” between people who think artificial intelligence systems are conscious and those who insist the technology feels nothing are looming, a leading philosopher has said.The comments, from Jonathan Birch, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, come as governments prepare to gather this week in San Francisco to accelerate the creation of guardrails to tackle the most severe risks of AI.Last week, a transatlantic group of academics predicted that the dawn of consciousness in AI systems is likely by 2035 and one has now said this could result in “subcultures that view each other as making huge mistakes” about whether computer programmes are owed similar welfare rights as humans or animals.Birch said he was “worried about major societal splits”, as people differ over whether AI systems are actually capable of feelings such as pain and joy.The debate about the consequence of sentience in AI has echoes of science fiction films, such as Steven Spielberg’s AI (2001) and Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), in which humans grapple with the feeling of AIs
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