Summary
Overview
In this Planet Money episode, host Amanda Aronchick explores the mysterious tech giant Palantir through an unusual lens: a satirical dating event in New York called 'Singles Dating Matching Using Palantir Data.' The event, organized by tech entrepreneur James Steinberg, demonstrates modern data surveillance capabilities by creating detailed dossiers on attendees using only their names and phone numbers. Through interviews with attendees, Palantir expert Mike Steinberger, and revelations from the event itself, the episode examines what Palantir actually does, how its software enables unprecedented government surveillance, and the growing concerns about digital privacy in America.
The Palantir Dating Experiment
Tech entrepreneur James Steinberg organized a provocative dating event promising to use 'the same technology that tracked down Osama bin Laden' to make love matches. About 60 people paid $20 each to attend, driven by curiosity about Palantir's surveillance capabilities and concerns about their own digital privacy. Many attendees work in tech and were skeptical yet intrigued about what data could be compiled about them from just a name and phone number.
- Instagram ad promoted a dating event using Palantir-inspired data matching techniques
- 60 attendees paid $20 tickets, providing names and phone numbers to the organizer
- Attendees ranged from curious to nervous, with many wanting to understand what Palantir knows about them
- One attendee hoped her common name would protect her privacy by creating confusion with doppelgangers
" I want to see what my file holds. And I was maybe teased that they found a lot about me. "
" I hope not great. But also my name is pretty common as well. So when you search your name, you'll find a whole bunch of different people. "
What Palantir Actually Does
Contrary to popular belief, Palantir doesn't own, buy, or sell data. Instead, it creates software that helps organizations make sense of their own messy data sets. Author Mike Steinberger explains that Palantir's core business is providing tools that take disparate data from across an organization and make it 'legible and useful,' enabling faster decision-making and problem-solving.
- Palantir does not own, buy, or sell data - they only provide software tools
- The company works with CIA, FBI, Department of Defense, ICE, IRS, foreign governments and businesses
- Palantir software merges large amounts of data quickly to find needles in haystacks
- Airbus used Palantir to identify production glitches, cutting diagnosis time from a month to one week
" They don't keep any data, and that is an intentional choice. They say that they care a lot about privacy, so much so that they have built in guardrails. "
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