Bribery.
Airbus is using Palantir services. The competition between Boeing and Airbus has often be brutal and dirty, and considered significant at the state level.
The fact that a company like Palantir be allowed to insert themselves in the software infrastructure of a critical company that is often working against the interest of the US seems very weird to me.
I wander if they'd care to further elaborate on that.
He's just reading the room - no-one wants to be associated with the current US regime, and given Trump's specific dislike of him (you know, because he's not white), he probably doesn't seem to see much reason to beat about the bush.
The US has proven to be a bad international partner, they flout international law, they engage in piracy, their political system is prone to rapid and catastrophic change, and the people there seem to be just fine with electing a narcissistic fraudulent rapist and felon as president. Twice.
Not just "No" but "Hell, No!"
[ITT: Watch the butt-hurt USAsians downvote because they're not used to someone telling it as it is about the USA]
The hypothetical snap of the finger from Beijing to shut down power in London (assuming that local operatives would indeed comply, which is not given) could have been easily reverted in a few hours with a snap of the finger from London to replace key people in the company hierarchy or place the company under public administration.
Sadiq Khan blocks £50M Met police deal with Palantir https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221296
On the other hand, their effectiveness appears to be less in question: the article above claims that Scotland Yard found hundreds of police officers to have been abusing their posts in various ways through use of the Palantir system. I am not a fan of corrupt cops, so I think this is good. Similar stories exist elsewhere, like a 68% reduction in 48-hour mortality at a Tampa hospital through deployment of Palantir's anti-sepsis monitoring tech.
Thus I arrive at the conclusion that this decision is ultimately a loss. Khan's legal standing appears to rely on them not investigating other potential suppliers—I'm not sure that there are any, and "develop these simple data systems in-house" is a bad option because if they could have they would. I suppose ultimately I don't think that Palantir's "bad vibes" among constituents should impact governments' desire to be effective in the programs they purport implement.
> ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt “illegal immigrants” https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s168
> ICE Just Paid Palantir Tens of Millions for ‘Complete Target Analysis of Known Populations’ https://www.404media.co/ice-just-paid-palantir-tens-of-milli...
> Trump Taps Palantir to Create Master Database on Every American https://newrepublic.com/post/195904/trump-palantir-data-amer...
> Palantir allegedly enables Israel's AI targeting in Gaza, raising concerns over war crimes https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...
This is far more than just "bad vibes", and just a handful of many examples. The vibes also tend to be pretty bad around things that are used to enable spying, a secret police force, or bombing children.
This isn't even touching on the name of the company itself and the origin of that name, or the fact that Peter Thiel founded it, or many of the other things that give it "bad vibes".
You don't have to like the company to respect the hustle. I deem them utterly despicable, on par with IBM who sold the Nazis the tools to round up and exterminate Jews during the Holocaust, and indeed their UK division is run by the grandson of Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists.
clickity clickity click click
Anyway its a conflict of interest that a Mayor that is not a technocrat decides what software the Police uses. Seems so wrong.
To be fair, the Met should get a little credit for applying Palantir to themselves first.
His alternatives look bleak and elitist, I would not be surprised in the slightest they reverse this.