Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

goodlawproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#61

Post by itronitron »

7thaccount wrote: post #48
TriangleEdge wrote: post #7

Pre IPO ex Palantir here. Palantir will do a number of things to gain influence. They'll find out who are the decision makers on the space they want a contract, and they'll target them specifically. For example: if they know you take the train to work every morning, and read the news paper, they'll take a full page advertisement on the paper they know you like and that you'll see. They gain this information by, you g…

They seem sketchy just based off their name from the LOTR object. From Wikipedia: "A major theme of palantír usage is that while the stones show real objects or events, those using the stones had to "possess great strength of will and of mind" to direct the stone's gaze to its full capability.[T 2] The stones were an unreliable guide to action, since what was not shown could be more important than what was selectivel…

From my understanding, Palantir is mostly successful because of it's utility as a data aggregator within an organization. So yeah, you have to know how to use the tools available but it's not going to stop anyone from coming to the wrong conclusion.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#63

Post by csteubs »

tptacek wrote: post #43
anigbrowl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal humans don't try to communicate directly with each other through the media.

Have you ever been on public transit in DC? There are billboards all over the place (or were a decade ago when I was there last) that are clearly sales efforts targeting like 4 people. It's not that weird.

Extremely accurate. L3Harris pumped so much ad money into the walkways at Dulles I'm surprised they don't have naming rights to a terminal. There was a time not too long ago where you couldn't listen to WTOP without hearing Mitre and ManTech ads with the term "Digital Twin".

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#64

Post by tptacek »

csteubs wrote: post #63
tptacek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been on public transit in DC? There are billboards all over the place (or were a decade ago when I was there last) that are clearly sales efforts targeting like 4 people. It's not that weird.

Extremely accurate. L3Harris pumped so much ad money into the walkways at Dulles I'm surprised they don't have naming rights to a terminal. There was a time not too long ago where you couldn't listen to WTOP without hearing Mitre and ManTech ads with the term "Digital Twin".

Which like, seems entirely rational? You're a sales team pursuing a deal with an 8-9 figure outcome, of course you would buy a billboard on on the decision maker's commute, it's a rounding error expense.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#65

Post by KittenInABox »

morelisp wrote: post #39
KittenInABox wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, this isn't responding to listener's reaction. It's determining their personality ahead of time through research and then executing a rhetorical strategy. This kind of focused information-gathering about a target before engagement is also the kind of calculus used by serial killers, btw.

MBTI is a pseudoscience, not a magic spell to "execute a rhetorical strategy" - or again, as a homo sapiens might call it, "talk to".

I agree it's pseudoscience. But trying to psychologically profile your mark before talking to someone is still weird and creepy. This is far more than seeing if a chick is receptive to being picked up at a bar on a Friday night. It's seeing her at a happy hour a week earlier and then planning for the rest of the week all the strategies to get her to go home with you on Friday, including stalking her social media, following her around to determine her grocery times, etc.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#66

Post by blue_cookeh »

cedws wrote: post #6

I just don't get it. NHS needs a big data platform so they go to a... spy tech company? Why are they so insistent that it must be Palantir that builds this, instead of choosing from a dozen of other consulting companies that don't have a dodgy track record? Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become)…

> Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become).

This is patently false, a narrative often parroted by people who don't understand or have never worked in the NHS.

There are many intelligent people in technical/digital roles in the NHS that innovate on a daily basis - heck, many build systems internally at a hugely reduced cost compared to outsourcing yet decisions come from parliament/gov agencies that overrule internal decision making and waste insane amounts of cash on vanity projects, or scrapping internal work to be redone by the likes of Accenture.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#67

Post by filoleg »

ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #19
cedws wrote: post #6

I just don't get it. NHS needs a big data platform so they go to a... spy tech company? Why are they so insistent that it must be Palantir that builds this, instead of choosing from a dozen of other consulting companies that don't have a dodgy track record? Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become)…

Why isn't the universities being used to solve these problems

Probably because the quality of the final end-user software produced by universities is less than what a company like Palantir would produce.

It is kind of amazing what you can create if you have hundreds (if not thousands) of really well paid SWEs with industry experience of working on real products used by people who pay money for it. As opposed to a bunch of really smart (and really underpaid, looking at the stipend amounts) grad students who know a lot about their specific domain, but lack the industry experience and proper product management.

Add on top of that that Palantir will dedicate engineers just for their big customers, just so that they can assist with integrating and customizing the product the way the customer wants. Palantir literally has a role for that called Forward-Deployed Engineer, and they will fly out to wherever the customer is to address whatever issues they have. Even if all else was equal, there is no way a university would be able to do that.

P.S. Don’t get me wrong, universities can produce groundbreaking and amazing software that will live on outside of the university walls. But it would be usually rough cutting edge prototypes with zero customer support of the type that companies and governments typically look for.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#68

Post by gumballindie »

cedws wrote: post #6

I just don't get it. NHS needs a big data platform so they go to a... spy tech company? Why are they so insistent that it must be Palantir that builds this, instead of choosing from a dozen of other consulting companies that don't have a dodgy track record? Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become)…

> must be Palantir

Corruption. Bro leading Palantir has friends in high places. It’s easy.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#69

Post by g8oz »

tptacek wrote: post #43
anigbrowl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal humans don't try to communicate directly with each other through the media.

Have you ever been on public transit in DC? There are billboards all over the place (or were a decade ago when I was there last) that are clearly sales efforts targeting like 4 people. It's not that weird.

Again, not normal humans.

Re: NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

#70

Post by educaysean »

mywacaday wrote: post #35
nimbius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah meyers briggs, the tabloid astrology of the office worker.

I know someone who worked in finance HR for approx 20 years. Nearly every time the business hired someone who would have been identified as a poor fit by Meyers Briggs they wouldn't last 12 months.

Growing up in Asia, I've heard similar anecdotes about blood types. Yeah it sounds stupid in 2024, but back in the 90s, the bloodtype-personality theory was endorsed by politicians and business leaders.

Pseudoscience yields anecdotes. Science yields empirical results.

Post reply on HN