Astro Hacker News - New York City hospitals drop Palantir as controversial AI firm expands in UK

tombert |next [-]

It seems like letting a company like Palantir anywhere near private medical data is a pretty bad idea. I am happy NYC is doing this.

Manuel_D |root |parent [-]

Palantir builds software that customers use to work with their own data. Custody of the data remains with the customer.

This is like saying a hospital that uses Excel is handing over data to Microsoft.

pvtmert |root |parent |next [-]

while I understand the meaning here, modern Excel does handover data to Microsoft (via Copilot)...

gullies |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I heard that they lock data by using proprietary formats. MSFT does not do that.

easterncalculus |root |parent |next [-]

They literally did. XLS was proprietary until Microsoft completely cornered the spreadsheet software market.

vovavili |root |parent |previous [-]

Locking users behind proprietary data formats is _literally_ the sole point of Microsoft Office.

guywithahat |root |parent |previous [-]

In some regards I'd almost rather Palantir runs it, since the DoW would force them to implement very strict data isolation features which hospitals could then get for free. I wouldn't imagine Epic Healthcare Systems would be forced to isolate data so aggressively.

That said I also recognize the moral dilemma and understand why they'd pull out. Frankly I'm surprised they did much work with hospitals at all

nradov |root |parent [-]

Most Epic products aggressively isolate data. The majority of instances are run on-premises, and even those hosted on cloud platforms are single-tenant. They have a good record for data security and privacy; afaik all Epic data breaches were actually caused by infiltration of other customer systems.

willis936 |next |previous [-]

Why are so many entities dealing with Palantir? They are a poison pill for customers.

0x3f |root |parent |next [-]

They don't have in-house talent to implement what they want. The same reasons they used to hire Deloitte/EY/KPMG/PwC. Palantir is one rung up from those places when it comes to talent/ability to deliver.

paxys |root |parent |previous [-]

Palantir is a glorified IT consulting company. You tell them "I want a system to manage patient records" and they will dispatch a team of engineers fresh out of college to build it for you while charging top dollar. They are able to get government & military contracts because of lobbying and influence, but generally everything you see about them online is marketing.

nottorp |next |previous [-]

Palantir is an AI firm now? Thought it was a data collection/spyware firm.

payphonefiend |next |previous [-]

Their main product is just consulting and PowerBI but for government. So much hysteria online!

danny_codes |root |parent [-]

Their CEO is a crazy person who seemingly wants to tear down democracy

infinitewars |next |previous [-]

J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel's Palantir is reportedly getting the software contract for control of Golden Dome, an orbital weapon system built by Elon Musk.

A weapon system capable of targeting any person on Earth controlled by a mass surveillance company. Wonderful.

paxys |root |parent [-]

I'd be concerned if any of the parties involved were halfway competent. This is a grift for taxpayer dollars, nothing more.

user3939382 |next |previous [-]

NYC schools just passed some AI guidelines as well. No training on student PII data, no final grades, etc. Unfortunately that's a pinprick for the behemoth.

varispeed |next |previous [-]

"controversial"

Everyone knows what's going on, but also everyone is too afraid to stand up for some reason.

Manuel_D |root |parent [-]

What is going on?

whiterose1214 |previous [-]

[flagged]

quentindanjou |root |parent |next [-]

[self redacted as the above comment was obviously a troll]

dmix |root |parent |next [-]

> Then explain how they do surveillance and analytics

They work with law enforcement agencies and help them process data they legally collect into other government databases. Their main product is merging data from various databases and adding a UI layer for analysis.

Basically, Palantir is a data integration company that works for government and larges businesses under contract. Some data they get hired to work on includes surveillance data and military intelligence collection.

varispeed |root |parent |next [-]

Main product is sales tactics.

varispeed |root |parent |previous [-]

Main product is good PR.

ianm218 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I think he is implying that their enterprise contracts are all on prem and airgapped? Seems unlikely to me they do that for all their customers but they likely do for the government ones anyway.

0x3f |root |parent [-]

It's not necessarily airgapped but yes. Air gapping is a bit much for hospital data, which after all does have to be readily accessible to the people working at the hospital or group of hospitals.

0x3f |root |parent |next |previous [-]

> ah? Then explain how they do surveillance and analytics (from the above article contract). The base necessity for doing this work is... data, and the data is somewhere, stored.

It's on prem at the customer.

mhh__ |root |parent |previous [-]

I know nothing about palantir in particular but typically these software stacks have a bunch of random crap in them to deal with fetching data from other system's the customer has.

throwaway27448 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

The law is generally a bad proxy for whether or not society approves of xyz commercial behavior

tombert |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I don't think people are accusing Palantir of criminally misusing the data. The government rewrites the laws around what these analytics firms are capable of, and as such Palantir operates in that space. Whether or not it's "illegal" doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is creepy Big Brother shit.

Also bullshit that they don't store data.

bilbo0s |root |parent |previous [-]

>Like it or not, there really isn't any other company at this scale capable of doing the sort of work Palantir

That’s only making European entrepreneurs salivate at all of that sweet EU funding they can suck up to replicate PLTR in service of their sovereignty initiatives.

fakedang |root |parent [-]

Europe is currently lagging on the cloud front, the AI front and even the SaaS front. They can't even wean themselves off of MS Office ffs, after all the shenanigans Microsoft and the US have pulled against them. I have no hopes of the EU building anything that can replicate even 25% of Palantir.

0x3f |root |parent |next [-]

They only have to replicate Palantir marketing and garnish it with a bit of nationalism. Not like the government is good at getting its money's worth in the end.

fakedang |root |parent [-]

Trust me, they can't even do that.

holoduke |root |parent |previous [-]

And not forget hardware. All they have is meaningless leaders with zero vision. My dumb AI claw tool has better view of the world than they do. They might as well be replaced by those AI agents. Probably better outcome that current