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ndiddytoday at 2:29 PM1 replyview on HN

The whole point of Anduril is to create autonomous weapon systems that can kill people autonomously without human involvement. When you look at interviews and speeches that Palmer Luckey has given, they are always deeply unsettling. In a 2024 speech, he said "Societies have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims. You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don't lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom." ( https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/01/palmer-luckey-every-countr... ). He's said in a Bloomberg interview that "there are actually things I would like to build that the DoD would not use and would not deploy, that they do think are beyond the pale" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItLFpYha6Wc ), and he's said in an Axios interview that he would be willing to build nuclear weapons, as well as chemical weapons "in a specific vertical". He elaborates by saying that it's a huge mistake that the US military isn't allowed to use tear gas in combat. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZfW3YTJ5Eg )


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reasonabl_humantoday at 4:09 PM

Creating “autonomous weapon systems that can kill people without human involvement” is not the whole point of Anduril. That is against SROE which are controlled by the DoW and it’d be a monumental ethical dilemma if this were to be changed.

Also, Palmer is one of many Anduril co-founders, and is not the acting CEO. His opinions are an input but are not ground truth for the company. He has effectively been a marketing figurehead for years.

Please stop spreading disinformation. If people engaged with defense technology and ethics in defense with more earnest curiosity, we’d have more productive dialogue and a less polarized tech community.

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