Is Developing AI Targeting Capabilities For Drones 'This Generation's Manhattan Project'?

U.S. airmen prepare a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone as it leaves on a mission at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan March 9, 2016. Picture taken March 9, 2016. REUTERS/Josh Smith

Business Insider: A Palantir exec described the company's secretive AI drone program as 'this generation's Manhattan Project'

* Palantir executive Shyam Sankar described the company's work developing AI targeting capabilities for drones as "this generation's Manhattan Project," according to two people familiar with the comments.
* The comments, made during a January all-hands meeting, come as the company expands its work on "Project Maven," a department of defense project which Google stopped working on in March following protests inside of the company.
* Sankar also told employees the company was profitable in 2019, the people said, though it's not clear by what metric.

Secretive data analytics firm Palantir believes its work helping drones autonomously identify enemy targets is as urgent and important as America's race to develop a nuclear weapon during World War II, two sources have told Business Insider.

At a company all-hands meeting earlier this month, Palantir President Shyam Sankar described Project Maven, the artificial intelligence defense initiative that Palantir joined after Google announced its departure in 2018, as "this generation's Manhattan Project," according to two sources with knowledge of the meeting.

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WNU Editor: I somewhat concur. Developing AI platforms for the military is a critical program for the military. And like nuclear weapons, it will redefine how future conflicts and wars will be fought.