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Comment by m-p-3 | Hacker News Reader

Still, if someone crafts a knife and someone uses it to hurt another I'll blame the user, not the crafter.

sure. but I sell you a knife and you come back and ask for a bunch of features that make it easier to hide, and a special curve to make it easier to get underneath the human ribcage, and a wider blade that makes wounds heal more slowly, etc....at some point you have to accept your complicity

That’s not compelling. Knives have practical and constructive uses outside harming people. Palantir is being used as designed.

A better analogy would be someone with a knife asking Palantir to draw up a list of people that can be stabbed with impunity.

The time has passed to blame the knife maker, unfortunately. I'd like to give him a piece of my mind. Kidding aside, I see where you're coming from. I'm not trying to excuse lawmakers or the people who fire the gun, operate the drone, etc. I'm just saying the knife inventor is a part of the chain, he or she is not a neutral party.

You can't have it both ways. Police can easily hold someone as guilty of a crime for being in the same car as someone committing a crime. If you can be charged for that then a creator can be held complicit for any actions done using their software as intended.

Within reason. I am no apologist for a lot of police misdeeds and dual standards, but whilst you _can_, often you won't, depending on context:

multiple high speed chases around where I live have resulted from police lighting a car up, and the driver failing to stop. Passengers in the car were "released on scene", because there was a recognition that they did not commit the failure to stop (and other associated offenses), nor could they safely extricate themselves from proximity.

What if somebody discovers two feuding tribes in the jungle and decides to sell them deadly knives by advertising their killing ability?

Note: My comment is responding to the general idea of disclaiming responsibility. I don't know enough about this company to judge.

There is a difference between crafting a knife and crafting a tool specifically for harmful purposes. The IBM engineers who helped Germany facilitate the holocaust are probably a bit more involved in evil than a knife crafter.

Hell. They forward deployed engineers (just like Palantir!)

> Particularly powerful are the newly-released copies of the IBM concentration camp codes. IBM maintained a customer site, known as the Hollerith Department, in virtually every concentration camp to sort or process punch cards and track prisoners.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ibm-holocaust_b_1301691

Does the crafter still avoid blame if they were knowingly contracting to craft knives for a gang that has a history of hurting others?

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