Archive link: https://archive.ph/stHvt

Palantir CEO Alex Karp thinks his AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat” while increasing the power of working-class men.

“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,” Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. “And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”

This sounds like a direct, long-term pitch to the GOP from a CEO whose tech firm already has numerous government contracts and is deeply embedded in the Pentagon. Karp’s message is loud and clear: My technology will take political capital away from one of your greatest enemies—liberal women with degrees—and give one of your favorite demographics to patronize—working-class men—more political power to transfer to you. He’s aligning his technology with both GOP political strategy and the larger male-centered culture war that the right has been waging for the better part of a decade now. And how exactly would his technology only hurt Democrat women?

Karp also made a Patriot Act–era argument, justifying his admittedly “dangerous” technology by claiming that Palantir will allow us to “be American” in the future.

“These technologies are dangerous societally,” Karp continued. “The only justification you could possibly have would be that if we don’t do it, our adversaries will do it. And we will be subject to their rule of law.… Why is it that we’re absorbing the risk of disrupting the very fabric of our society, including the most powerful parts of our society, if it’s not because it’s about maintaining our ability to be American in the near term and long term?”