Sky News reports:
Labour members call on government to cancel Palantir's NHS contract
A conference committee will decide on Saturday whether the emergency motion will be debated and voted on.
What people don't seem to realise about these AI contracts is that they function as a paid-for training ground for AI.
A £330 million training ground in this case.
Of course, the more data AI gets the more effective it should be in its contractual role.
But when an AI has been used to target Russians by Ukraine, target Palestinians by Israel and target illegal immigrants by ICE in the USA, it's quite right to ask whether that same AI should be used to target patients in the UK NHS.
The other perspective is that of former Labour peer Tom Watson who now has a big job at Palantir (like LibDem leader Nick Clegg who became a fan of social media at Facebook). Watson claims:
Palantir is the most interesting company on the planet, doing work of real consequence: helping Britain and its allies defend themselves, helping police protect our citizens and helping NHS staff get patients treated and home sooner.
That word 'interesting' is freighted with meaning.
Software of any kind always wants to get implemented in order to 'improve itself' through 'user feedback' - this is a well-established fact of the software application world.
But paying for training the software takes this improvement up a notch.
If this kind of software is to be used in the NHS then:
- Patients need to be fully informed that it is being used in their case
- Have the right to ask that it not have access to their personal data
- And if it has, have the right to know exactly what of their data the AI has been 'trained on'
Because that's what it is: training.