FilmSpecial – Neuer Kapitalismus und künstliche Intelligenz: Watching you. Zu Gast: der Regisseur

FilmSpecial - New capitalism and artificial intelligence: 'Watching you - The world of Palantir and Alex Karp'.
Guest in the film discussion: Director Klaus Stern

The FilmSpecial "Watching you - Die Welt von Palantir und Alex Karp" (Germany 2023 / Director Klaus Stern / 98 min / FSK: from 6 yrs.) with introduction, documentary film and subsequent film talk, aims to provide insights into the depths of the new capitalism and the use of artificial intelligence as an aid in surveillance systems.
For the first time, a documentary film looks at Alex Karp and Palantir. With his company Palantir Technologies, US entrepreneur Alex Karp has created the successful yet controversial data analysis software "Gotham". On the one hand, it enables states to comprehensively monitor their citizens. On the other hand, it supports intelligence services, the military and police authorities, including in Germany, with information that can be used to solve crimes - or for targeted killings. Palantir is currently an important partner of Ukraine in the defense war against Russia. The company is as secretive as it is mysterious. It grew up with its work for the CIA and NSA. It is worth over 50 billion US dollars on the stock exchange. Osama Bin Laden is said to have been hunted down with its help. One of its founders, Peter Thiel, is a right-wing libertarian with rather bizarre views who openly supported Trump. The other, Alex Karp, describes himself as a former neo-Marxist. Today, he is CEO of the largest commercial surveillance company in the world. He admits dryly: "Our product can be used to kill people."

Director Klaus Stern refrains from any commentary in the film and lets the individual statements stand on their own, which reinforces their effect on the viewer - and allows them to find their own answers. A depressingly topical and eye-opening documentary gem of a film, which cannot be surpassed in terms of relevance due to the current world situation.
Alex Karp's parents, a Jewish professor and a photographer, were hippies who dragged him along to demonstrations from an early age. The fact that Karps went to the Sigmund Freud Institute at Goethe University in Frankfurt after graduating in law is certainly just as unusual for a Silicon Valley billionaire as his confession of being a "neo-Marxist". On the other hand, he founded Palantir with Peter Thiel, of all people, the Trump supporter and right-wing libertarian co-founder of PayPal. Karp's proximity to the Springer Group, on whose supervisory board he sits and at whose events he is a welcome guest, is also striking. Not to mention the fact that his Gotham surveillance software is the wet dream of every autocrat in the world, the use of which was stopped by the Federal Constitutional Court.
In the subsequent film talk/discussion with director Klaus Stern, visitors will have the opportunity to engage in a professional and discursive exchange about the content shown in the film. An event in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation Rhineland-Palatinate

THURSDAY 3.4., 6.30 pm, cinema auditorium
Admission: 8,50 EUR / 5,00 EUR reduced
Reservation: phone 06430-929724, Kremlin
Tickets: online via www.kreml-kulturhaus.de or at the Box Office