My main question generally is, why is palantir doing the work that research institutions should be doing for governments.

Make the data public if you want to see progress

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planetjones 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

From reading the case studies it seems most of Foundry in the NHS is geared towards operational data e.g. how to utilise capacity within an hospital efficiently.

Palantir does have very strong capabilities to protect data e.g. security markings, not allowing data to be exported.

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harvey9 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

FDP is using patient-level health data so not something likely to be made public, and the goal is to manage this specific health system so not really a research endeavour. This would still be the case even if the UK had picked another supplier or built it's own platform.

Separately, there are some Trusted Research Environments out there for approved research projects.

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seydor 6 hours ago | parent [-]

What does "public" mean? Giving the data to Palantir in this day and age practically guarantees the data will be scraped for US 'security' purposes, particularly the ones having to do with immigration and immigrants.

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orochimaaru 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Palantir provides the software but installs in your cloud or hardware. They rarely exfiltrate the data. So you don’t give Palantir anything (usually).

Edit: I can understand not wanting to use a non-UK company for NHS health. But Palantir isn’t the all seeing bogeyman it’s made out to be. It’s just knowledge graph and AI models which run in your cloud or hardware.

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harvey9 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is not a good faith argument

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tormeh 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you give your data to a Chinese company you make your data available to the Chinese intelligence services. Same with most other countries with geopolitical ambitions. I don't see how this is controversial. This is why you only buy IT services from countries you trust.

	▲	hermitcrab 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I trust Palantir about the same as I trust the Chinese government with my health data.

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yakshaving_jgt 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Could you add substance here? The egregious corruption in the current US administration is something we are all witnessing in real time. This is not rhetoric.

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hulitu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> My main question generally is, why is palantir doing the work that research institutions should be doing for governments.

Because they pay better.

Have you seen research institutions lobbying the governments ?

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stocksinsmocks an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

There are a few answers to that but the most obvious reason is quality of work. You can expect a lot more out of a contractor whose billed rate is $250 an hour versus a grad student. The second point is that least in the United States, all government jobs are purely clerical and administrative. The government, as you know it does nothing for itself, except may be law-enforcement. Contractors do everything. Space flight, building the roads, managing construction programs, hauling trash, everything. In this particular case there are “national security“ interests that have inserted themselves into the healthcare domain who want the data and to control treatment. You don’t get to say no to people who with unlimited resources and a “by any means necessary” MO.