Angry Planet - How Palantir Is Using AI in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Defense contractors and governments can run a thousand simulations, but the data they get will never be as good as what’s generated on a battlefield. When Russia invaded Ukraine, tech companies saw an opportunity. A land war in Europe presented a unique chance to test cutting-edge technologies. That’s why, a few months after the 2022 invasion, Palantir CEO Alex Karp drove into the capital to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. TIME Senior Correspondent Vera Bergengruen is here on Angry Planet to tell the story. She traveled to Ukraine herself to see how tech companies have turned the country into a test bed for AI and other advanced technologies. As the war grinds on, Kyiv is singing the praises of the companies that help keep it safe. But wars aren’t forever and what becomes of some of the more invasive technology like facial recognition when the fighting stops?How Tech Giants Turned Ukraine Into an AI War LabA Palantir-published tech demoSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. I do think there's a good discussion to be had on what's real and what's hype, right? Oh, absolutely. And I think that's a good place to start. But first, will you introduce yourself and who you work for and what you're doing here? Yeah, so my name is Vera Bergen-Groon. I'm a senior correspondent for Time Magazine. I just got back from Ukraine a couple of months ago on a trip where I reported on how different tech companies, especially Western tech companies, are using the war and the battlefields there as a kind of big test ground for new tech. And one of the companies that's at the center of the story is Palantir.

And for people that are listening that may not know, or maybe only know the Tolkien reference, what is Palantir and how important is it? So Palantir is a very interesting company. It's kind of got this myth around it at this point because it was founded, you know, with some CIA-backed seed money. It was founded to basically, it's, you know, it's a data analytics company. A lot of initial contracts were for Western governments, for Intel agencies, for defense agencies. And so that's where a lot of its early work took place. And because of that, a lot of it was classified.

A lot of kind of happened in the shadows, whether intentionally or not. So it's always been shrouded. This company has always been shrouded in this kind of aura of mystery, which they kind of embrace. It seems they really like that. It makes them seem more competitive. It makes them seem more otherworldly. You know, there's a lot of rumors floating around, for example, the fact that, you know, their software was used to find bin Laden, stuff like that, right, that they don't deny,

but I'm kind of wink all the time and say, we can't really discuss that, you know. And it was founded by Alex Karp, who's a very unusual character in his own right, as well as Peter Thiel, who doesn't need an introduction. And so I think all of these factors make Palantir a very interesting company that continues to have this really, again, very shadowy reputation, even though at this point it's a massive unicorn tech company. Tell me about Karp. So Alex Karp, all right. So he's a, I'm not sure if any of our listeners have ever seen him, but that would explain a lot. He's, you know, this lean guy with this like cloud of wiry curls, you know, these rimless, clear glasses.

He really embraces that image of kind of the mad scientist. He has a PhD from a German university in philosophy. You know, he doesn't have the usual tech background. But by now he's become, you know, the last 20 years, he's been the face of Palantir. he, I think his most defining feature, you know, he's very off the cuff. He's not very, he likes that. He says he's very direct. But then when you talk to him enough or listen to him enough, you realize he like everyone does have his talking points and that it's a bit more intentional than it seems to seem that, you know, that off the cuff. He, I think one of the things he emphasizes the most is how wholeheartedly he believes in his company's mission. It's a very kind of, compared to many tech companies, which ultimately are businesses, and they are wrapped in more corporate speak. He takes a lot of pride and saying, you know, we don't do any of that. We don't go to golf courses.

We don't go to these dinners. We don't do PowerPoints. You know, we are this renegade company that is just out there on the battlefields testing our tech. And so his whole image kind of goes well with that. And he's very adamant about supporting Western governments. He told me once he thinks all tech companies in the U.S. should be required legally to give all of their tech to the U.S. government. You know, he believes there should be no distinction.

And he, that makes him different from most people in his sphere. Doesn't it also make him different from Peter Thiel, who is sort of like this libertarian character? It does indeed. You know, I haven't seen too many, I haven't seen them delve into it that much. Peter Thiel is definitely way more private. He doesn't speak to the extent that Alex does about the company and about, about, about that overlap. But at the same time, we can get into this later, but I do think there has been a very

clear turn where it's become profitable and lucrative to be working with the government in the last three, four years, you know, to be seen as something that used to be, you know, there used to be protests when Google decided to, you know, work with ICE, to work with the U.S. government. Employees were quitting. I do think there's been a pretty big change in that, especially after the Ukraine war, where a lot of tech companies took the unusual stamp. of taking a stand on a geopolitical issue and supporting Ukraine. And I think now we're seeing a lot of companies kind of, especially I think with the AI race and China, a lot of companies in the U.S. kind of feeling like it's cooler or more on trend or more lucrative to take a stand.

So how does this happen? I know that's kind of the big question that your story is about. But how does Ukraine become this testbed for all this technology and become this place where these companies run. Yeah, so I think we have to remember that for the first couple of months, it wasn't really clear that this would last as long. It seemed like Ukraine could actually fall, you know, like the Russians were within 15 kilometers of Kiev.

And so they were just taking anything they could get in terms of weapons, in terms of Elon Musk sent these Starlink terminals so they could stay connected. They were any tech company, no matter how small, how large, they just said, give us anything you've got. Cloud space, you know, Microsoft was there, Amazon was there, and a lot of this was done remotely, so it was pretty easy to do. So, you know, they kind of, at first were kind of, they would say, the receivers, they were taking anything they could get. They were trying to use the advantage against a much bigger, better armed military by embracing tech and giving them this asymmetric advantage where by staying connected, by being able to move

the entire government to the clouds so it couldn't be incapacitated by cyber attacks, all these different things. They were taking, they were kind of hoping to have an advantage over this larger invading force. And within a couple of months when they realized it was going to be a longer battle, I think they also realized that what they had, which was access to a live, modern war, which we've never quite seen in this extent. I mean, the last couple of wars we're thinking of in the Middle East and in other areas, I mean, you don't have a possible. population that all has a smartphone in hand and a Wi-Fi connection and can film everything that's going on and upload data all day. And this is what much of Ukraine is like. And so they saw

that they had a completely unprecedented opportunity to not only receive some of this tech, but make it better. And then in return, kind of sell it back to the West, to other countries, and present this entire war almost as a massive lab where you can come and test your drone, test your, you know, even like remote education software. It's not just war-related stuff. It's anything to help a modern population live through this kind of very strange World War II means AI war, right? So I think that's kind of what they realized, according to officials that I spoke to within the first couple of weeks, they said, okay, let's think longer term. What can we get out of this and how can we kind of capitalize on this tragedy that's happening to us?

So what are some of the interesting uses for AI that you saw while you were there? I mean, the cloud and keeping record safe and stuff like that is so every day. So like what stood out? I think that was the interesting thing. If you read about what's happening in Ukraine, AI is an end in general, right? But AI is tossed around very loosely to describe anything that, you know, including a lot of technology. that has existed for a long time. So it's sometimes a little difficult to ascertain. What I focused on, which in, let's just say that one of the largest way that it's being used is

in drone warfare. And there have been very clearly, like, it's been a big revolution in how drones are used and how cheaply they can be made and how quickly and autonomously you can just deploy them to, if anything, just cause a little bit of chaos, right? And we're already seeing the lessons being applied. I mean, I saw some reports that Hamas kind of adopted some of those same lessons from the Ukraine war when they used drones recently. Taiwan is basically building its own drone army. So, I mean, that is clearly one of the ways in which AI and, you know, Aton's warfare is coming together.

That's not what I covered the most closely. I was focused on the software aspect of it, on the people sitting in Kiev or in Europe and kind of able to affect the outcome of this war sitting behind a desk, right? And to answer your question, I mean, it's been interesting because ultimately, it is kind of pedestrian because what it is, it's data analytics. It's being able to, in a way that hasn't really been done before, at least in this kind of war, take an incredible amount of data. You know, it's satellite imagery. And all of these things have improved since

the last time we saw this kind of conflict, right? So we've got commercial satellite imagery that you can get a lot faster, radars that can see through clouds, thermal radars that can kind of detect artillery fire and things like that. You've got reports from, you know, WhatsApp. from people on the ground that are just sending you constant images of tanks rolling past their apartment. And you've got, on top of that, just all of the internal data that Ukraine has. And all of that together suddenly creates a much clearer digital map of the battlefields than we've been able to do before. So it's not that you couldn't have it before, is that before it would take you two days for the perfect satellite image to come through. Now you have it in a couple of hours.

and now you're overlaid with all of this information and then use these kind of algorithms to tell you, okay, you know, what is, you know, what school can we open safely based on what we know the landmines are, you know, what can we, what can we, and again, obviously in just typical military sense, you know, which any positions can we target? But a lot of this isn't, you know, we think of like killer robots coming in and attacking the Russians.

It's much more having, it's just much more about, My discovery was that I was much more about having a clear amount of information way, way, way faster than you could ever do it, faster than the enemy does. So then once these algorithms basically present commanders with options, which are still being taken by humans, it's not an algorithm making the decision. Then you're given options that would have taken hundreds of analysts a long time to present to you. So I know that sounds kind of boring, but ultimately that's, that is revolutionary. Well, actually, it sounds to me like ways for war. Yeah. Honestly, yeah, that's one way to look at it.

It's just imagine having all of that so quickly and then being able to, what's important, what's different is that with each strike, these models will improve. So if you know that this didn't work, if you're like, you know what, the Russians actually never use this formation anymore, they do this. All of that feeds into the same, into the same algorithm, into the same models and it improves its predicament. And so that's the other thing. I think we don't think of as as exciting. But really, again, it's having like a very accurate and much faster way to make decisions. This is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you and why I found your story so striking is that, no offense, it was a little boring. No offense taken. There's so much, well, there's so much hype in this space around artificial intelligence and around warfare. And whenever I dig in, and whenever I go looking for what's actually going on,

there's a lot of hype and a lot of buzzwords and a lot of cliches and not a lot of specifics. And where I do find specifics is usually around data analytics. That's almost always where the big AI revolutions are coming from for the military. It's all logistical support stuff. And so when I started reading your piece and saw that that's what you saw a lot of what was going on, it was like, this makes sense. this is actually true. And, you know, I'm sure we are going to have like AI drone swarms and these kinds of things are already happening.

But it's not, I think a lot of that stuff is far less advanced than people maybe are expecting it to be. Totally. I mean, I think I definitely got a lot of the, you know, again, like killer robots, you know, attacking Russians and the war basically being completely handed off to algorithms and humans just sitting back and watching. We're not there. but, and to me the most interesting thing about that and about Ukraine is that when you look at it, it's still a war being fought in the most brutal World War II style. Like, people are getting trench foot, you know, in the trenches. Like, that is something from 100 years ago.

You know, they've got the tanks, the artillery. It's incredibly old-fashioned. And in a way that is really jarring to see in 2024. At the same time, you've got, again, like drones, you know, like all these different things kind of not yet. it's not that future of war that people talk about yet, but it is very actively being developed day by day, week by week. And I think that is actually where the kind of revolution comes in and something that's important for us to pay attention to because it is a living lab for warfare. And even a lot of people come in and are disappointed, not disappointed by what they're seeing Ukraine,

but they're just kind of like, all right, where is this big AI revolution you're talking about? And again, it's a development lab. It's the R&D test ground. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting also the ways that the advances are things that meant to augment or counter old stuff. Like FPV drones dropping munitions on top of tanks is just a different kind of artillery, right? It's just about halting that armor before it can breach your lines. They're still, they bust out old maxim guns and use them, you know, all this stuff still works. If we can back up a little bit, you open the piece with this really interesting anecdote where the first time Karp comes to Ukraine in his meeting. He meets with Zelensky.

And this was just a few months after the war had started, right? Right. Why did he come? What was going on here? Yeah. So from what he told me and the people who were with him told me, it was very important for them to be early. And again, it kind of, we have to remember what. this ethos, this myth that Palantir really likes to embrace, of working in the shadows,

of being in every war zone, of, of aiding the West, right? And even, you know, there's a lot of things that they've done in the past that haven't been very popular and that haven't been widely embraced. And I think they could tell now that they're a big company that cares a lot about their bottom line, that this was, you know, quote unquote good war. This was the perfect place for them to come in and that, you know, the rest of the, they saw the rest of Silicon Valley basically coming to their side in a way that we'd never seen before. So, and they had always done this. So for Karp to be there as the first CEO of a major Western company in the bunker with Zelensky while the Russian, you know, while there were still

smoldering ruins outside of Kiev, was really important to him. So I think they basically got in as early as they could. And, you know, it was a lot of kind of cloak and daggers at the beginning. They, you know, I did the same drive with with them for the story. You're a year and half later. And, you know, it's still pretty, you know, you have to cross the border. It's a, it's a whole process. You have to drive for nine, ten hours, only stopping for gas and just kind of keep going until you get to Keith because you're not really under much protection otherwise. So, you know, it was definitely a risk that he took. But again, it goes very much with what they like to do. And I'm not sure that would have been a company exactly like Palantir that

would have done the same thing. But the kind of things that they offered them and the way they've ingrained themselves in the operation of the. almost every agency of the government in a way that will be difficult to extricate in the later like they're going to have to become a client of Palantir. I'm not sure that was intentional or could have been predicted from the start, but it very clearly went, that's the lines along which they were thinking. Is this stuff that's being developed already better than what militaries are currently using? I mean, the private market is like, has it surpassed all of the stuff they've already spent tens of billions of dollars on?

So it's interesting. I think that there's two things there. One of them is, and this is one of Carp's favorite talking points, but it's true, is that things actually have to be tested. You know, you can use as much synthetic data as you want, but it's never going to give you the same, you know, battlefield data is incredibly valuable. And by Palantir being there, being used by this government, they have access to it in a way that many other militaries and companies just don't in order to be able to make their

their stuff better, especially the kind of stuff that Palantir does, right, which is specifically these models. And then the other thing as well is that, and the second way I think, and this has always been the case with Palantir, is that their products are much more user-friendly than the ones that are being developed, for example, by the DOD or other militaries. So even if it's exactly the same tech, if in many ways it's a data analytics system that allows you ultimately to do the same thing, it is much easier to use by people who aren't trained to use it from the start. And so that's how Palantir actually became what it is. Is, you know, the DoD didn't want to buy these things from them because they were developing

exactly the same thing. And Palantir went around them and started putting it into the hands of soldiers and commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, the interface was just more user-friendly. It was easier to use. And once they liked it, once they started using it on the ground, the Pentagon basically had to go back around and purchase them. And so I think that's the other thing is, you know, it's difficult for us yet to answer how much of what they're doing is revolutionary. But there's two things.

They're testing it in a real hot war, which not most of these militaries and companies can say. And second of all, again, this is just from the Ukrainians talking to me. And I think we have to remember that they are getting this for free as of now. So I think there's a lot of incentive to keep getting it for free and to praise it. But it's very obvious that they find it very easy to use. easy to build on top of, easy to personalize. And so that's another thing that I haven't seen other companies' products quite achieve. So you've got Ways and the Microsoft War Suite.

You know, you open up Excel in one window and Word in another, and you have war in the third window. I tell you, it's, yeah, it's not the Manhattan Project, right? It's a lot. The movie about that it's going to be way more boring. It's going to be a bunch of people sitting behind a screen. So what does this actually look like then? What did you see?

when you were there. I mean, I know that it's basically a person behind a screen at a computer, right? But like, what does that interface look like? What exactly are they pulling in? Like, how did, you know, I've seen Palantir's videos that they've shown off, but I'm assuming it's different in real life. Yeah, it's a little different, but again, what they give a visiting journalist is not too far from that. It basically looks similar to that, you know, kind of going with a ways example, but it's, you know, a lot of what I was shown, kind of starts from really clear satellite imagery overlaying with a lot of different data and to a pretty incredible degree of detail. Like, you know, you can zoom in all the way.

They're looking for a landmine. You can zoom it all the way into the trees. You can, you know, look at everything you want. And to me, the most interesting was actually not the Defense Department in some senses where I think a lot of very tech-savvy people are and they can do this already. But the way that other agencies used it who have way fewer resources and are still able to use as very effectively. For example, the education ministry is using it to keep the entire country moving in terms of getting kids to school and exams and things like that. The demining effort, things like, you know, so basically these people who are, you know, like an average bureaucrat still operating in a very Soviet-style infrastructure, looking at this kind of interface,

and then having almost like a chat GPT style window on the side where you can say, okay, show me, you know, this district, which schools, you know, are the furthest from the most recent power outages or landmines or, you know, airstrikes. And, you know, you're able to narrow all that down with, again, just basically a large language model interface. But it's, it's, they've never been able to use something like that before. And it's come, it's not hyperbole to say that it's revolutionized the way they're able to keep the country running during wartime because it's it would have, they wouldn't have had the resources to gather all these different data streams to make decisions in a way that allows them to keep going. And so in terms of what it

looks like, I mean, it's what I saw wasn't, it was different test cases, but it was not too different from what listeners can go and see Palleteer exhibit. But that's because that's basically what a lot of them are doing. And that's what a lot of the military commanders are looking at as well. They're being presented with a handful of operations. options based on the crunching of all, you know, analysis of all of this data and of everything it's learned from previous strikes. And then they pick an option and communicates it downward and it's carried out. But it's, it's the speed and the accuracy of all of this data being able to be used. That really makes the difference. But again, it's, yeah, I think some people kind of

picture it as, you know, which weapon, it almost like a video game, like which weapon would you like to use? Like, you know, which enemy do you want to strike? You know, it's not too far from the truth, but ultimately it's just intelligence. I just want to make sure I'm getting like a clear picture here. So you have all the sensor data that's being collected all over the country, whether that's satellite imagery or as you

said, cell phone pictures or facial recognition stuff, which we'll get into in a second, kind of being fed into Palantir database. And then the user in Keev, say, is interacting with it

through a large language model. it's how they're accessing the data. Right. I think the less technical people, right? This is like the average official interacting with it. The military has, I've been told I haven't been able to see a non, it was an unclassified model. But, you know, they have access, I think, to weigh more of it to be able to kind of customize what they see. But yes, that's basically what it is.

I think the average person, the average Ukrainian official interacting with this, is basically interacting with it. You know, again, you can, you can zoom in, you can overlay with all kinds of data to figure out what's useful for you. And to kind of, again, track troop movements, see like artillery fires, see what has happened, see certain, the outcomes of certain decisions over time. But the way to interact with it for most people is through, you know, this is something that they were pioneering when I was there. And I think it's already being used. It's through almost like a large language model window. And then, of course, there's the actual software engineering.

who have, that's a completely different thing. I spoke with a lot of them. They couldn't really show me too much of what they were working on. But Ukraine has a very large talent pool. A lot of very talent, you know, they have a, they say they have a software engineer deployed with each battalion to basically be able to communicate back and forth in a way that makes these processes better. So, so yeah, I think, again, a lot of the stuff that's happening that's actually not revolutionary, but incredibly different and very effective is, is difficult to really see. All right, angry planet listeners. We're going to pause there for a break. We'll be right back after this. All right, welcome back. Angry Planet listeners. We are talking once again about AI in Ukraine. Who else is in the country besides Palantir? What are their companies? Yeah, so it was interesting. I mean, you know, the Microsoft, Google's, Amazon's off the world that gave them a lot of stuff. They are mainly on the outside. They don't really have their own executives in Kiev as much as far as I can tell. Although when I was there, they were coming in and out. I mean, the officials I was meeting with were just coming out of a meeting with Google. VPs who are going to Kiev, right? I also think there's a, especially because Ukraine is a cause that a lot of these Silicon Valley types can get behind, especially at the beginning.

I think there was a lot of a lot of these guys loved going to a quote unquote war zone, you know, going to the capital, you know, even though you can get like avocado toast and sushi. And, you know, it's not to, not to diminish what's happening. It's obviously awful. But when I was there, was very calm. And it's, I think there's a lot of these, uh, exactly. for big tech companies like being seen as going to Ukraine, right? But in terms of other tech companies, it's a lot of your small European companies, a lot of drone makers, a lot of, you know, I'm trying to think of Wells is actually in, lots of people have, it's a little difficult to put down like a permanent presence.

Even Palantir, which made such a big deal about, you know, quote unquote opening an office in Kiev, it's really like, you know, then they walk it back and say it's a presence. And they do have, you know, they've got a lot of Ukrainians that they hired who are pile into your employees. But the executives who are, you know, London-based, U.S. base, they go in and out. They don't stay their full-time. And so I think most tech companies have kind of taken that up as well. But especially on the European side, I saw so, so many small tech companies kind of

setting up shop in these co-working spaces because it's much more effective to be there in person. But most of them do hire locals, both because, yeah, again, they're, there's, It's a very skilled base there that you can draw from. And also because you basically need not just a literal translator, but trying to work with the Ukrainian government is very difficult for many outsiders. So they hire Ukrainians for that. It makes sense, actually, because a bunch of work was outsourced to Ukraine anyway. Right, exactly, before the war. Tell me about Fedorov.

Seems like an interesting character. He is indeed. He is very young. He's 32. He was 31 when the war started, and he was in charge of basically the entire digital infrastructure of the government, but also in many ways the backbone of Ukraine's future economy, because that's what they're trying to build. They are hoping to be the next Israel. They use this example all the time. They want to develop not just tech. And as you pointed out, they were like this before the war. They had, you know, a lot of companies you might not even think, you know, grammarly, like.

A lot of these companies are actually Ukrainian. But then they shifted to military tech and to defense tech and to these kind of things. And so Federov was in charge of both attracting investment in Ukraine's own tech ecosystem, not just, you know, Palantir coming in, gathering what they want and eventually leaving, but tech companies that are Ukrainian, they want to, you know, develop their own sector. They wanted to, you know, become lucrative. And they've become Federov, who is this digital transformation. minister has become the face of Ukraine's efforts. And he's, again, very young, very smart, speaks in

the exact parlance of Silicon Valley. You know, it is funny. You walk into his office in Kiev, and the rest of this building is 1970s. You know, it's kind of turned out. The lights are turned off. It's very old. It's very, just very Soviet in every way. All the offices are very drab. And you walk into his office, and he's got all these like, you know, quirky electrical signs, neon signs. They offer you an oat milk latte. They're very excited that they can offer that. You know, he's got, you know, a chess board and like a home gym. And it's not too different from a lot of the offices I've walked into of tech people here.

And that is actually really important because a lot of the people he speaks with both before the war, but especially during the war, found like an easy person to connect with there because he fully understands how tech companies. his work. He's been to Silicon Valley a bunch. He speaks in terms of, and again, in corporate parlance, you know, in terms of outcomes, in terms of innovation. And so when the war broke out, he was able to call these people up who really wanted to help and have it be less of a barrier because they already had all of that set up. Well, I was going to ask about secrets. Silicon Valley usually is pretty good with keeping, you know, corporate secrets and non-disclosure agreements and all. They're famous for that sort of thing. But are they treating this technology as like state secret or, I mean, how does, how does security work around it? In Ukraine, do Ukrainians you mean? Yeah. So it's interesting. They are currently, I think, a bit of two minds, because on the one hand, the main focus when I was there and in general is on keeping the secrets from the Russians.

They're very concerned about like all kinds of security in terms of operational security. of making sure that the Russians don't know what they have, what they're working on, who's meeting with them, to an extent. On the other hand, they really like to publicize it because they think it's a deterrent factor. They think that them knowing that they've got the palinaries of the world behind them, you know, may make the Russians think twice about certain things or they want to make them aware in some senses.

So I think that the way that I saw that emphasis the most, I guess, was almost in terms of economics, in terms of wanting to make sure that a lot of this money that's being invested, a lot of this tech that's being developed that in the future will be sold to the next war, that Ukraine gets that cut, that Ukraine gets that income, that it's not going to be Google selling that, but it's going to be a mini-Ukraine in Google, right, that goes, that has the IP and that gets to kind of develop that in-house,

if that makes sense. So they've gotten very choosy about who they allow in. Like, Palantir was there, as we mentioned from the start, but they've gotten way more picky about who, they work with and who they allow to access a lot of their battlefield data and also a lot of what works and what doesn't, which is ultimately what they're able to sell, right? There's a dollar figure attached to that. Oh, that's interesting. They know they've got something. Totally. Yeah. I mean, again, they say this publicly. They said this to me. Every single one of them

knows how lucrative battlefield data is and access to their front line. And so even within a few weeks of the war, they realized that they actually wanted to be picky about who they let in. And, you know, other companies confirmed that I spoke with a U.S. company that has a Ukrainian co-founder that said they were going to European defense conferences to basically sell smaller, you know, again, drone-related software, things like that. And nobody wants to buy anything unless it says tested in Ukraine on it. You know, that's the way it was put to me. And that makes sense to me. I mean, it's a, it's, there's always going to be before and after Ukraine when it comes to a specific battlefield tech. And if it hasn't been actually tested in Ukraine, it's going to be

much harder to sell it. And the Ukrainians know that. Tell me about, speaking of, um, keeping secrets, tell me about what Clearview is doing there. Yeah, that was a much maligned company. Clear. I have to admit that was my favorite story I did in Ukraine. Uh, I am so intrigued by, facial recognition in software in general, but clear view because it is so much simpler. If you give me a code, I can use it today. You need very little training to use it. And they've basically just opened the, you know,

the genius out of the bottle. Like they've provided 1,500 Ukrainian officials with access to this platform and, you know, scrolling TikTok the other day, as I want to do for Ukrainian videos. I saw some guy just showing awesome small account, just showing off how he's able to search people on Clearview, right? I mean, and I'm clear if this guy actually authorized to do it.

I'm assuming not because why would you do this on TikTok? But, you know, it's so Clearview has a very effective facial recognition software. It basically, I mean, according to their own numbers, but no one's really contradicted it as far as I can tell in Ukraine. They came in around the same time as Palantir, and they basically said, you know, and they have a very similar mission. The CEO also believes, and, you know, he says he would never sell the software to Russia or China, which, to be fair, maybe don't need that much help.

They already have their own pretty dystopian facial recognition empires. But they wanted to be on the right side of this war. They provided the Ukrainians with just, you know, the CEO himself was on Zoom training, all these officials. And from what I've heard, I mean, the way that, like, I've never quite seen, this level of praise for something. The Ukrainians are obsessed with Clearview. And it's no surprise because when you look at U.S. police departments,

in this country, it's more controversial. But they are obsessed with it too because it's incredibly effective for the most part. You can upload any photo and get matches all over the place. And when I interviewed the CEO, he offered to do with my photo. And actually, really sad, I said no, because it freaked me out at the moment. But, you know, they can find you from. a really grainy photo from the back, from the side, and they're able to, you know,

allegedly identify Russian soldiers who are burnt almost beyond recognition. It could still find their Facebook page. So basically what they did is they used it mainly to identify Russian soldiers. You know, again, as we discussed, there's cameras everywhere. There's people taking photos all the time. So they've got a big database of photos that they're trying to identify,

these Russian invaders as they call them. and they're able to basically figure out where they come from, you know, Russians love social media. The CEO uploaded a lot of VK, which is their Facebook, into this database. So both soldiers that were killed in Ukraine and soldiers that are there committing war crimes or just soldiers that happen to be there, all of them are identified. And then all of this is uploaded to a public website where if you're a mom in Russia and have no idea where your son is, but you know he's in the military, you can check this and you will find him and you will see what he's up to. And it's actually a pretty big deterrent. Within a couple of months of them using Clearview, people were starting to come in the middle of June in a very hard time of year with masks on because they saw how quickly they would be identified. And so the Russian side of it is not surprising, but they're also using it on Ukrainians a lot.

In some cases, it's very useful. You know, if you lost your passport to an airstrike, if you need to get somewhere, they can identify you, figure out who you are. they're also using it to identify Ukrainian collaborators, as they call them, in occupied territories, which again probably gets a lot trickier. They say that these people go to meetings. They're able to see who's working with the Russians,

put an arrest warrant for them, maybe take matters into their own hands. I'm sure you can imagine in wartime. I'm sure there's a lot we don't know. But again, like it's an incredibly effective thing. All you need is a code in an app on your phone and thousands of Ukrainian officials, but probably, who knows, maybe some other Ukrainians as well, are able to use this to identify as many people as they want.

And I think the main concern people have, which is, I have, honestly, is what happens after the war? You know, like, you can't, it's very difficult to prevent people from using this afterwards, and they're very used to it now. In coming from a, I'm going to incorporate one of the listener questions, coming from a tech skeptical background myself, I, whenever I think about these facial recognition systems, I think about the high profile failures and what happens when someone is falsely identified, which has happened far more than once, sometimes with clear view. The FBI and ICE have both had enormous failures using these kinds of software. Did you get any sense of, A, what happens after the war and B, what happens when there's a false positive? You know, I really pressed on this. I do feel

I agree, and I think we're going to learn a lot about this in the coming years. But I think right now it's very difficult to ascertain. I mean, clearly there is a margin of error. You can imagine how much worse it is when that means you'll likely be targeted in a war, not just arrested in the U.S. and have a legal process you can go through. Both of them are bad. But it's, you know, I think there's a lot we don't know. I think there's definitely high potential for misuse and chaos.

and also misidentification, which again, in a war where this might brand you as a Russian collaborator, I mean, the stakes are very high. But to be honest, you know, they will say this. They don't care. They are in a life or death situation. They say that like, same with the Pile Interior Software as well. Like a lot of things where people say, okay, you're kind of letting these tech companies ingrained themselves into your infrastructure.

You're relying on their tech to do all these different things. happens after, especially with things that are so controversial because of their privacy violations and all these other things. I mean, Ukraine wants to join the EU. It wants to be a European country, which has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world. And, you know, it clearly has actually been banned in a bunch of European countries. So I think a lot of the concerns I hear is, you know, what happens now? Like Ukraine is seen as this country that allows, you know, quote unquote, bad tech or controversial tech to be used in order to win this war, but, you know, it might actually, you know, be very difficult later to extricate it. And also it actually might stand in their way

of joining the European community that they want to join. That's another interesting part of that. Well, and also, I would think that other countries like the European Union's privacy laws wouldn't survive the first missile attack, right? I mean, it's one thing to point fingers when you're not being attacked. Right. I think that that was for me the takeaway of a lot of the, and again, my trip to Ukraine was basically to see at how a lot of this technology is being used in the war. And I was specifically interested in technology that is considered controversial and intrusive in peacetime in countries in the West. But few people would argue that there's no use for them in a war zone if it can help you win a war, if it can help protect someone, right? One of the use cases for Clearview, which I've confirmed and is, it's just interesting. And obviously, and good PR for the company, which they love. But it's, you know, there's been hundreds of Ukrainian children, especially the ones who were in Occupate areas,

that were basically shipped off to Russian families to be raised somewhere else, from orphanages, from, you know, from families they were with. And they're able to identify so many of them because, again, Russians love social media. They're posting family photos. And a Ukrainian mom has told, your kid's okay, but he's here. You know, it's not that it's much better, but it's really interesting. Like, you know, that changes everything. And there's a, you know, and as you said, none of this would be possible given privacy regulations in a lot of these countries. But I think there's a really

interesting conversation that's happening during this war about when, how far privacy protections should stretch in a war. And what happens, you know, when, when should a lot of this be suspended? And when does controversial, intrusive tech become, you know, good tech or something that people get on board with when it can help reunite your family or save your life or, or, you know, something else. So I think this, that that's my kind of niche area of interest is these conversations that are happening. And it's very easy from over here to look at them and, and judge. But I do think that having spoken with so many of them and, you know, you do get obviously very much sensed the desperation and the urgency when you're in Ukraine, you know, it's eye-opening.

And it's something we're going to have to deal with in the future. What a nightmare to have your child stolen and then watch them live a different life on VK? I can't imagine. Yeah. I mean, and again, from speaking to some of these parents, I mean, I think to an extent they expect the worst. So that, you know, a lot of them might be in Russian occupied territories. A lot of them are basically just saying, you know, after the war, we'll figure this out. but I think it's still incredibly useful to them to know where their pit is and that they're okay.

And so that's, again, like that's a kind of unusual test case that no one set out thinking to use his tech for, but now exists. Another thing I thought was interesting going back to Federov was your characterization of him, because you've interviewed him multiple times, right? Tell me the difference between him and his office at the beginning of the war and in your most recent trip. Yeah, I mean, he, I spoke with him, I think, a week or two into the war. He wasn't very well known back then. Now I do think he'd actually become a very public face of the war effort, especially in the West, because he goes, you know, he goes abroad all the time. Back then he was sitting, you know, in a bunker, as most of Zelensky's cabinet was and most, you know, most ministers were underground in these incredibly fortified bunkers in the dark much of the time because they turned the lights off after. certain time of the evening. They had sent their families to the Western Ukraine to try to escape.

And they all had decided to stay. And it's also interesting, he spoke at the time through his deputy, who speaks English more fluently, but now he speaks English like very, very well. He still prefers to go through a translator sometimes to be more clear. But you could tell he was, there was obviously like a desperation to every conversation I had with him and with his ministers, because they were just trying to, back then what they were trying to do was get every single Western company on their side, not only to help Ukraine, but to ban their services in Russia, if you remember, it was like banning anything they could in Russia. And so they needed to speak to journalists like myself in order to get that out. By the time I saw him again in person, and he actually

came to Washington as well, and I met him in Times Bureau in the summer. And, you know, he's definitely kind of become much more self-assured, kind of, you know, he's become, you know, he's become much more polished in how he presents his talking points. You know, he's been able to speak to CEOs and tech companies and the world leaders that he never would have dreamed of before the war. And the issue of Ukraine's tech ecosystem has become one of the success stories of the war. And so for him, you know, he's become the most successful minister in Zelensky's cabinet by those standards. You know, he's 32 and he's basically leading the reformulation of Ukraine's economy into a tech forward economy. He's been very, very successful.

So I think it's been, it'll be very interesting to see where he goes next. A lot of people think he's going to be an important government figure for a long time. But he really kind of represents, I think, that new Ukraine, the Ukraine that really, really, really wants, you know, a modern economy that wants to be European. And one of the most interesting takeaways, I think, from my conversations with him and people his age was that they also are almost using this as a bet on Ukraine's future. as a country because they think that a country that is who's so, you know, whose entire economy and entire system rests on, you know, the internet and free speech and high tech could never be Russian. It could never be integrated into this like, you know, into this like civil Soviet era

Russian system. And so it's almost a bet on its future, right, that they are so desperately trying to shove it into, into this very different system. Yeah, no, that I can see what you're saying. I mean, we're so Western. You can't possibly abandon us. We're one of you. Right.

And also like, what are we going to do with Russia? Like, how could we possibly be ever part of Russia's system? You know, a system that's based on censorship and, you know, a lot of these things. Like, they're going to the other extreme on purpose. And at this point, a whole generation has grown up in Ukraine used to it. So, you know, it's difficult to see how that would ever work. Jason, I know you've got a hard out at three. Do you have any other questions here before you have to bounce?

Um, no, I don't, but I want to say that you're really terrific. I appreciate, you know, I understanding this. It's, it is like everything else, as we've said over and over. It's like, it is tremendously dull and incredibly important. And then it's also really interesting, too. I mean, once you dig into it, like, there is actually, yeah, it's just not the rocket cars and everything else that, you know, that we were hoping for. But. Yeah, it's hard to explain to as a reporter, all way, you know, you know, writing for a general audience. It's always kind of difficult because people want the, you know, the sexy killer robot situation. But no, I think you did a great job, though. I mean, yeah, I think what you was was definitely very, very readable. So I want to go back to also your particular point of interest, which is this clear, the technologies like a clear view, these places where people are embracing, uh, controversial technology, uh, in a war's zone, what other stuff, aside from Clearview, did you see that kind of fits that mold? Let me think. Because a lot of these things are interesting because it goes back to our point about

doing away with some peacetime kind of privacy things. And so, you know, again, everything that's digital, everything that's, you know, Ukraine was already a way more digital forward country than the U.S. is. I mean, they're able to have all of their, you know, their driver's license, their passport. Everything's on an app. They can do everything on the same app. And so there's obviously problems that could come with that in terms of, again, like tracking you, surveillance, you know, some privacy intrusions. But a lot of this is actually either Ukrainian companies or using small European kind of satellites in order to not necessarily keep track of the population in terms of what we think of, again, in the U.S. and the West, but really like,

like, for example, being able to see where people are driving, like which roads are being used the most so that, you know, if they know that they're going to be targeted, they can close them. A lot of just wartime stuff relies on keeping people safe by knowing where they are at all times. And, you know, this is, again, this is not exactly high tech, but it is something where people are willing to give up some freedoms in order to get that. But in things, in terms of big companies, in terms of quote unquote, bad tech, I think Clearview and, you know, Palantir would dispute this, but people on the outside would call Palantir controversial tech are definitely the two biggest ones, especially as us, U.S. companies.

And, yeah. All right, I've got a couple of listener questions here. We've kind of gone through some of it. But let me ask, is a lack of U.S. funding hurting any of these tech initiatives? It sounds like tech is getting more out of this than Ukraine is, or at least that they're happy with the bargain they've made. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting because we're seeing this on the manufacturing side, on the arms side, you know, with the slowdown in U.S. arms and possibly, you know, uncertainty

about it. We're seeing one of my colleagues, Simon Schuster, wrote a really good story about this. We're seeing Ukraine trying to desperately revive its own arms industry and trying to figure at how they can do this themselves. On the tech front, it's obviously different. We do have to, you know, Palantir ultimately does need and want to be paid. And that's kind of clear. So a lot of this would come so far.

They've been paid basically through the DOD, right? Through, you know, through a lot of this money that's earmarked for Ukraine. And so eventually that's a way that I could see this impacting the war in Ukraine on the tech side, is if a lot of these tech initiatives, which Asaf now have skated on the goodwill of these companies wanting to be seen as helping this country. But ultimately, they're devoting a lot of people to it. It's expensive. And if they want some of that money that's coming towards Ukraine from Western countries to be paid to tech companies, you know, maybe. I mean, right now it's difficult to see a point at which they cut them off because it's become such a big part of their story. I mean, even, you know, you listen to Palantir's earnings calls. They love talking about Ukraine. Because for them, it's like a, You know, they talk about Israel. Not everyone agrees with what they're doing in Israel. Most people agree with what they're doing in Ukraine.

It's become this like, you know, easy thing for them, good PR for them. And so I think it's unlikely that any of these tecamas are going to cut them off. But when I was there, there was a lot of anxiety about how this could impact, you know, how the slowdown of U.S. support could impact the war. And again, if anything, it might just increase the over-reliance on, a lot of these tech products when they, you know, but again, which is impossible because the war is for the most part still being fought with just traditional artillery, which they need, right? So it's, it's a very difficult thing because ultimately you can't out tech this war, right? It's one of the

General Zulusini, who until recently was the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces. He at one point said that the war had reached tech stalemate because he said that the Russians can see everything we're doing. We can see everything they're doing. And then, you know, know, it's a different kind of stalemate. It doesn't help either side. And so I think at that point, just material support will be the most important part. Any thoughts on how the U.S. military is or isn't learning in Ukraine? Obviously, they are learning a lot about performance of certain systems, but are higher level lessons about procurement, the changing role of drones, etc., being absorbed by the larger U.S. military? They definitely are, you know, in every way. I mean, you speak to people

here, you hear to what military officials are saying, and even in briefings publicly, you know, they are watching it all incredibly closely because a lot of this is working through NATO systems and through other things, you know, they've got access to a lot of the data of what works and what doesn't. And again, remember, I mean, Palantir is one of their biggest, you know, they use their own, the same tech, so in a sense they're benefiting from it as well. So the U.S., again, U.S. military has been very clear. They're very closely watching everything that's going on there. If anything, because they know that U.S. adversaries are also watching it very closely,

and every lesson learned from it will be applied by them as well. And so I think, again, it's a war that is providing an opportunity to test things that nowhere else in the world can be tested. So they are very much in it. All right. Last listener question. Any thoughts? Did you see the story in the Atlantic about Russia using commercial satellite imagery?

Yes. Do you have any thoughts on it? It kind of goes to what you're saying, right? Everyone can already see everything. Yeah, I thought that story was fascinating because it goes into the same niche that I've been doing a lot of reporting on, which is how could Western tech be used by adversaries as well in ways that we don't notice, right? So in this case, it seems pretty obvious to me that's happening, and it's difficult to prevent it from happening because anyone can purchase commercial satellite imagery for the most part and use it for what? you will, for your business, for your war. And so in this particular case, I mean, I'm sure, no matter how much they try to keep it out of the Russians' hands, it's going to be very easy

for the Russians to use it. And so I think that actually gets at one of the other, we've talked a lot about the software side, but the importance of commercial satellite imagery has been such another big kind of breakout thread of this war and of every future war. And now we're seeing, for example, Taiwan, working with commercial satellite companies in order, and drone manufacturers basically, putting all these people on the same umbrella because they think they're going to need that same asymmetric advantage against any possible conflict with China. And so I think, yeah, like a lot of these things that we now take for granted, in peacetime, you know, all this tech can be used by adversaries, right?

And everything can be used against U.S. and Western purposes. And so I think that's an area that I wish more reporting was being done on because I bet there's so much we don't know about that. Final thoughts here at the end. At the very, very, very beginning of the conversation,

you were talking about keeping in mind that a lot of the information that you got for this article is from Palantir. It's from the Ukrainians. It is going to be years before we perhaps actually know the impacts of a lot of this technology, right? where are trying to think ahead of phrase this.

How do we remain skeptical? And what are the things you think that we should be watching for pain points as the war plays out? Yeah. I mean, I think as I was trying to be very cognizant of this in my reporting, but obviously, ultimately, it's, although these are businesses in many senses, even the Ukrainians, obviously the number one focus is winning this war and keeping their country. But the number two priority is to keep us much of the lucrative innovation inside their country as possible, right? So if you kind of follow the money and see where people's motivations are, I mean, same with Palantir, right? They say it's this almost altruistic thing. But really, they're hugely benefiting from it.

It's something for them to point two. It allows them access to an RD test ground and allows them to market their products as having been tested in Ukraine. And so I think it'll be a long time before we can, or maybe ever, but before we can very specifically pinpoint how much very particular tech innovations or little things impacted the war as a whole. Right now, I mean, it's not helping Ukraine win the war, but most people would argue that it helped them until this point. Like, it allowed them to keep what they have up to now to help them defend the capital, to help them, you know, have a bit of this advantage. And so I think it's important to kind of always remember everyone's

motivations. As I said, the Ukrainians are getting, are using a lot of, you know, understandably are taking advantage of the goodwill of a lot of these companies. They're using a lot of the stuff for free. They would never be able to pay for it. And so it's in their interest to also sing its praises. At the same time, you know, you kind of see the shift in tone between all these different sides. And I think just remembering who has a financial stake in, in amplifying, you know, certain products of efficacy is important. But again, as a report, you know, working with what we know,

we can only kind of go off what we see in terms of outcomes and what Ukrainians themselves tell us while keeping all these caveats in mind. So, yeah, definitely good to stay skeptical, but also I think, you know, I think it's undeniable that a lot of what's happening there is going to impact everyone in the future. And when it does,

I'm sure we would love to have you back on the show to talk about all of it. Where can people find? Where can people find your work? Yeah, you can, you know, Time.com, follow me on Twitter. I'm at Vera M. Bergen. And yeah, my email is public. I'm always happy to hear from readers. And any tips, any sources, anyone who's interested in this, I'm always looking for the next story.

Thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this. Thank you. That's all for this episode. Angry Planet listeners, as always. Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin Nodell. is created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like us, if you really like us, please go to AngryPlinicpod.com. Kick us $9 a month.

It gets you commercial free and early access to all the mainline episodes as well as the bonus episodes. It's a really great one we just put out over there about a literary scandal involving war. And what war literature is for and who wants it and what we can do to support it. had a great conversation with author Matt Gallagher. And that is over there at angry planetpod.com where you can subscribe. We also have already recorded the next bonus episode, which is about the military strength of the Houthis.

So looking forward to publishing that one soon. We will be back next week with a couple conversations about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.