‘Confini’ is on air – where the world changes

At 8.50 pm this evening, Thursday 2 July, on Il Sole 24 Ore TV – channel 63 on digital terrestrial television – the second episode of the TV programme *Confini*. Between freedom and control: Peter Thiel, Oppenheimer and the Technological Republic. Palantir was founded with a single aim: to develop predictive software that would enable the US military to prevent IED attacks on convoys. From there came the idea of bringing the same technology back home to provide it to local police forces and federal agencies. This has set in motion a process that potentially knows no bounds. It is based on AI and chips. It aims to both confront and create the wars of the future, yet it breaks the pact between citizens and the state, placing them on a vertical hierarchy of domination. What might happen?

The programme, presented by Simone Spetia – who co-wrote it with Claudio Antonelli – tackles a range of current affairs topics. Guests: Monica Maggioni, writer, journalist and author of the book *The Presidents*, published by Rai Libri, Biagio Simonetta, journalist at *Il Sole 24 Ore*; and Andrea Rossetti, associate professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Milan-Bicocca, where he also teaches Legal Informatics. The episode traces the historical roots of this line of thought and explores the risks and opportunities presented by a technology that is growing at an exponential rate. Robert Oppenheimer studied cosmic rays and positrons. In 1942, the US government called upon him to lead the Manhattan Project. What was the project? He explained it very well himself – in hindsight. ‘Physicists have known sin,’ was his comment following the explosion of the bomb in Hiroshima. Yet Oppenheimer has once again become a leading figure. For Palantir, the company founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp that promises to chart the course for the defence sector, the Manhattan Project serves as a guiding beacon. In the book written by Karp, a vision of democracy based on technological power emerges, alongside a strong critique of companies such as Meta and Google. A generation of founders has cloaked itself in rhetoric but – as Thiel & Co. argue – has raised enormous amounts of capital merely to build photo apps. A growing mistrust of national ambitions has taken hold. The collectivist experiments of the first half of the 20th century have been abandoned in favour of the needs of the individual. That is how it has turned out… say Thiel & Co… to the extent that even the government’s ability to continue to guarantee the security of the population has given rise to a new culture. Thiel and Karp say… we need faith and conviction in broader projects for collective defence. We must be mindful of the terms ‘individual’ and ‘collectivity’. Oppenheimer understood this. So much so that, in the post-war period, he refused to go ahead with the hydrogen bomb. He was investigated and retired to an island in the Caribbean. A path that deserves more attention than ever today.I

Finally, the programme features two reports. The first is on the robotics laboratory at the Politecnico di Milano, whilst the second report explores the boundaries between science and science fiction by analysing the neural experiments conducted by DARPA, part of the US Department of Defence, relating to the use of mobile devices to control drones using only the brain.