Many of us are making individual efforts to use our phones less, or to avoid A.I. But we will need to work together. At noon, at six-thirty, and at ten at night, before I shuffle off to bed, my phone automatically shuts off access to all social-media sites. If I want to restore my ability to mindlessly scroll, I have to walk sheepishly to my kitchen and press my phone up against a little plastic square that sits on a high shelf. This humiliation device, called the Brick, limits my screen time to the apps that, in an earlier moment of clarity, I deemed essential: text messages and Apple Books, which, during these Bricked hours, I have been using to dutifully reread " The Brothers Karamazov," prompted more by a sense of shame than by a sincere interest in revisiting the great novels.

GP data has been expressly ruled out of the scope of Palantir's existing £330m contract with NHS England. GP data has been expressly ruled out of the scope of Palantir's existing £330m contract with NHS England. Revealed: Palantir lobbied minister to stretch AI tools' reach to NHS GP records Mon 9 Nov 2026 12.58 ESTLast modified on Mon 9 Nov 2026 14.01 EST Palantir lobbied a health minister to consider extending its AI technology into GP records, stretching its reach into the NHS in a way doctors fear could undermine trust with patients. The US company, co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel, used a direct WhatsApp channel to argue that "the logic of joining up primary and secondary [care] data is unarguable" and said its software was "ideal" for the job. The push came in February this year despite GP data being expressly ruled out of the scope of Palantir's existing £330m contract with NHS England to run its federated data platform (FDP), which it says has helped cut surgery waiting times and discharge delays.

Palantir harvests battlefield data that Ukraine pays for'with blood' Share Palantir harvests battlefield data that Ukraine pays for'with blood' on social media Months into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Palantir's CEO Alex Karp became the first chief of a major Western Big Tech company to personally visit Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in June 2022 that he was "delighted" to receive the support of such a company in the fight against Russia "on the digital front line". Ukraine has since become the first nation in modern history to systematically collect battlefield data, a crucial asset for training military artificial intelligence (AI) to recognise patterns and make predictions. The trove of real-world combat data obtained from video and sensor feeds over four years of conflict is helping Ukraine monitor, predict and respond to Russian attacks with the help of Palantir's products. Yet observers say the data is also boosting the capabilities of the United States corporation whose technologies are implicated in human rights abuses, including in Israel's genocide in Gaza, raising questions about the growing leverage that private tech corporations are acquiring over sovereign states.

The trusts said that the Palantir system was either not live or they were not using any of its applications. The trusts said that the Palantir system was either not live or they were not using any of its applications. Exclusive: Gap between NHS claim and trusts' comments described as'very misleading' by senior health official Mon 2 Nov 2026 05.19 ESTLast modified on Mon 2 Nov 2026 05.31 EST More than two dozen hospital trusts the NHS claims have benefited from Palantir's medical data platform are not using all or most of the AI-powered technology, the Guardian can reveal. The 29 hospital trusts that NHS England publicly lists as "realising benefits" from the controversial £330m federated data platform (FDP) have said the system is not live or they are not using any of its applications. The apparent gap between the NHS claim and the trusts' understanding was described as "very misleading" by one senior health official.

'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? How HSBC's Sharia fund invested millions in Israeli war-linked firms Share How HSBC's Sharia fund invested millions in Israeli war-linked firms on social media The United Kingdom's biggest so-called Sharia-compliant fund spent more than $130 million to buy shares in several companies linked to the Israeli military amid an ongoing genocide in Gaza, pogroms in the occupied West Bank, and occupation of southern Lebanon. HSBC, Europe's second-largest bank, invested the funds through its Islamic Global Equity Index Fund in companies linked to Israel's military supply chain - from components used in weapons to technology and equipment with military applications. The firms range from US tech giant Palantir to the world's second-largest arms company, RTX. Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 74,300 Palestinians since October 2023, including nearly 1,500 killed since a "ceasefire" was agreed upon last year.

Image caption, Special chief officer James Deller's actions were an abuse of trust, the Met Police said The Metropolitan Police has fired the head of its Special Constabulary after Palantir's AI monitoring uncovered that he had used his work phone to copy intimate images of a woman. Special chief officer James Deller, who led the force's volunteer officers, was dismissed following a misconduct hearing on Friday. The Met said investigators used lawful business monitoring and Palantir's Foundry system, which uses artificial intelligence (AI), to find the misconduct by Deller. Cdr Pete Stevens said: SCO Deller failed to meet that bar. His actions were an abuse of the trust put in him and it is right that he is no longer able to serve in policing.

'Careless use of AI is the real threat - not the ghost stories' Image caption, Meredith Whittaker believes science doesn't support the idea that AI will turn against humans Warning: This article contains strong language. Meredith Whittaker has little patience for the AI doom that dominates headlines - she thinks warnings of AI turning on humanity is a fear not anchored in science. The risk is very real, says the boss of the Signal Foundation, which runs the encrypted messaging app of the same name, but it's not the shiny ghost stories the wild-eyed boys are talking about. Instead, she believes the more immediate danger is the technology being used carelessly. She cites an alleged incident, reported by CNN, in which a chatbot used by US intelligence invented information about a Chinese vessel carrying nuclear material, reportedly leading the US to prepare a military response.

Image caption, Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly criticised Anthropic's boss Dario Amodei The US Department of Defence is no longer using Anthropic's AI tools, an official has told the BBC, months after it designated the company a supply chain risk on national security grounds. The Pentagon has ceased the use of Anthropic products, the department official said in a statement. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth labelled Anthropic a supply chain risk in February, and announced that the Pentagon would stop using it by late August. But multiple people familiar with the matter told the BBC that as recently as last week Anthopic's Claude model was still used by the department in research, analysis and intelligence gathering as well as in military operations against Iran. It was viewed as a critical tool for sorting through vast quantities of information, the people said.

DHS agents not only tracked and intimidated people observing ICE activity in Maine, but stored information about them in a Palantir-built database, newly unsealed court filings say. An explosive and newly partially unsealed court filing alleges that the US Department of Homeland Security built up dossiers on ICE observers--including their photos, license plate numbers, and other information--and stored them in a system called the Investigative Case Management database, which was built by Palantir . Palantir did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for DHS calls the case "meritless" and says that "the underlying lawsuit is based on the lie that there is a database of'domestic terrorists' run by DHS." Plaintiffs allege in the filing, which is heavily based on documents produced by the government and depositions of DHS agents, that agents had a practice of intimidating protesters and observers. They did this, the filing says, by doing drive-bys of the observers' homes and, in the case of at least one observer, requiring that she be referred to secondary inspection any time she tries to cross the border until at least January 2027.

Health Care Workers Are Tired of Cleaning Up Palantir's Mess A hospital giant and radiology network turned to Palantir to streamline scheduling, but nurses and other staff say the new software is causing errors, burnout, and frustration. Over the past four months, Amber Retzloff, a critical care nurse in Florida, requested to work 50 specific 12-hour shifts. But over half the time, she says her hospital's Palantir -powered scheduling software assigned her to different shifts, often putting her on back-to-back-to-back days and leaving her mentally drained. Retzloff doesn't expect to always get the slots she wants, but by her count the tool does a far worse job honoring her preferences than managers did when they assigned shifts by hand. Retzloff's experience mirrors that of other nurses across HCA Healthcare, the largest hospital chain in the US.