Novara Media Novara FM: Palantir Technologies and the Age of Automated Genocide w/ Matt Mahmoudi
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Jun 5, 2025 Matt Mahmoudi, an Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Cambridge and AI researcher for Amnesty International, discusses the chilling automation of the genocide in Gaza. He reveals how technologies like Palantir intensify violence against marginalized communities and critiques the facade of neutrality in tech companies' roles. The conversation highlights the ethical dilemmas of surveillance systems, the complicity of big tech in state violence, and the urgent need for resistance against these oppressive narratives.
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Data Tech Militarizes Policing
- Data-driven technologies have militarized policing post-9/11, embedding racial biases deeply into surveillance and law enforcement.
- These systems criminalize marginalized communities using probabilistic inferences, often fueling racialized policing practices.
Surveillance Legacy Enables Control
- Historical surveillance systems from British colonial censuses to IBM punch cards underpinned racial categorization vital to genocides and apartheid.
- Modern digital surveillance in Palestinian territories continues this legacy, sustaining control and oppression via massive data collection.
Digital Containment Mirrors Incarceration
- Systems like facial recognition virtually contain and police racialized populations, dehumanizing individuals into data points.
- This digital containment allows automated, disproportionate control, analogous to historical physical incarceration.
