TechXGeopolitics #11: Does Peter Thiel Have a Grip on the Ethereum Protocol?
Also featured: AI-Powered Weapons in Gaza, the Militarization of Space
Welcome to my newsletter, where I set out to highlight significant, yet un- or underreported recent news and trends at the intersection of geopolitics and tech.
Why the intersection of technology and geopolitics? The future of geopolitics will be shaped by today’s tech advances, yet the two topics are often isolated from one another in journalism and geopolitical analysis. This newsletter strives to bridge the gap while also spotlighting relevant work by emerging and veteran writers in independent media.
Feedback on this newsletter’s format and content is more than welcome — please feel free to comment on this page, or write to me at stavroula.pabst@proton.me. Thank you for reading!
Israel’s Proposed Ground Invasion of Rafah/New AI-powered Weapons in Gaza?
Updates on the genocide in Palestine and a discussion of recent +972 Magazine reporting
“The directors told us that Al Shifa Hospital is gone. It's no longer able to function in any shape or form as a hospital.” – WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris
Israel is planning to invade Rafah in southern Gaza, where about 1.5 million Palestinians (over half of Gaza’s population) have been forced to shelter. What’s more, Israel’s revised 2024 state budget details the ground assault plans while also indicating Israel’s military spending for the year has increased from 76 billion Israeli new shekels (ILS) (21 billion USD) to 131 billion ILS (36 billion USD).
The news comes in light of other disturbing revelations, including the raid and destruction of Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, recent targeted attacks on aid workers and Israel’s development of “kill zones” in Gaza: while the IDF says the “kill zone” only applies if someone in the area is approaching Israeli forces, Haaretz reported that in practice, anyone entering in the kill zone could be targeted. Most importantly, there’s been a tragic loss of life: a harrowing five percent of Gazans have been killed, wounded, or reported missing since Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip began.
As per new reporting in +972 Magazine, further, Israel also has an AI-powered kill-system, called “Lavender,” which it’s using en masse to put people on a “kill list” in Gaza. I’ve reported previously on Israel’s “Gospel” AI-powered targeting program, which can identify military targets much faster than traditional human intelligence; Yuval Abraham reports in +972 Magazine how Lavender contributes to AI-powered military targeting, thus accelerating Israel’s killing:
A fundamental difference between the two systems [Gospel and Lavender] is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.
Abraham describes how the Lavender’s decision-making suggestions for targets are often taken at face-value by the IDF:
Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war… its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”
The +972 Magazine article’s revelations have circulated heavily amongst the press and on social media, with some wondering if AI’s use in warfare could be a convenient way for Israel to avoid legal and moral accountability for its genocide in Gaza.
Namely, the blame for myriad war crimes and Gaza’s devastation could be pinned to errors in AI’s computerized decision-making processes, therefore obfuscating Israel’s societal choice to destroy the Palestinian people. (Chillingly, some have even likened +972 Magazine’s reporting to veiled advertising for Israeli military tech!)
Whether Israel can successfully legally shift blame onto AI-powered machinery for its crimes remains to be seen. However, AI’s prospective treatment in decision making and legal settings alike remains an area of concern as its presence grows in day-to-day life. Namely, AI’s treatment “as if it were a human decision” in wartime suggests the devaluing, or perhaps even excising, of human input from myriad decision making processes is possible, if not likely, in the near and distant future.
Ultimately, the genocide in Gaza, like Ukraine, has been a prime testing ground of controversial weapons and reconnaissance systems, especially AI-powered programs like the Gospel and Lavender. And as long as the West enables Israel’s destruction of the Gaza strip, leading to an unprecedented loss of life, the weapons testing continues.
Important note: As I understand matters, +972 Magazine was obliged to clear its reporting with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) before publication through 2023, but no longer must do so. I had previously found but unfortunately can no longer find this information: I will continue looking for it, and will post the relevant information in the comments below if I am able to do so. (If you do have this information, please feel free to post it in the comments!).
I ultimately think discussion of the Lavender system is valuable to readers as AI emerges as a commonly used tool on the battlefield. However, I do not want to present reporting on the subject uncritically in light of ongoing critiques of the +972 Magazine article. As such, I present the relevant developments and reporting with these key caveats at the forefront.
Embassy bombing: Israel recently bombed Iran’s Embassy in Damascus, Syria, killing prominent Iranian commanders. The move violates the principle of “diplomatic protection,” where, as per the United Nations, the “safety and security of diplomatic and consular missions and representatives is crucial for international relations to function.” At the time of writing, Iran has vowed to retaliate, perhaps suggesting further expansion of war in the region.
New Work in Responsible Statecraft: Not Enough War on the Ground, the US is Taking it to Space
“The military industrial complex is suiting up for a new arms race, far beyond the stratosphere”
In a new article for Responsible Statecraft, I explore the military industrial complex’s expansion into space, where myriad weapons contractors and defense start-ups are using US military contracts and support to build a new arsenal of space weapons and tools and adjacent surveillance and communications systems. Recent space weapons and adjacent tech agreements include contracts to develop satellite-based surveillance networks and a Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept, where “scramjet-powered missiles can travel at hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 or faster) for offensive purposes.”
While building up its own space arsenal, the US is accusing Russia of developing a nuclear-powered space weapon. But, as I highlight in the article, “the accusations, which Russia denies, are vague. And, as Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Clayton Swope of the Center for Strategic and International Studies posit, Russia’s use of such a weapon seems unlikely as it is “effectively [a] kamikaze attack,” and would likely take out many of Russia’s own satellites while prompting major retaliation from adversaries.”
It seems diplomacy and public debate about the ongoing militarization of space, not US space superiority, is sorely needed.
Learn more: Read the full Responsible Statecraft article here.
Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin: a Recipient of the 2014 Thiel Fellowship
What is Ethereum? Ethereum is one of the world’s most prominent blockchain protocols. Known for its smart contracts, a program completing a desired action when the relevant preconditions (the “contract”) are met, Ethereum is known for facilitating Ether, one of the world’s most prominent cryptocurrencies today.
Broadly speaking, bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies have become popular to those looking for alternatives to traditional finance; they rose in popularity in the period following the 2008 financial crisis, when mistrust of traditional banking systems was high. (Though, critically, the concepts behind cryptocurrencies and bitcoin were not a response to the crisis; they have been in the works for decades). Generally, many people are interested in cryptocurrencies because they believe in the protocols’ use as tools for financial freedom and independence, away from traditional financial and political power structures. Many cryptocurrency protocols, however, appear pliable to outside political influence (if they are not politically captured from the beginning), possibly neutralizing their ability to provide users with truly decentralized finance.
What’s the connection between Thiel and Buterin? While Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is well known in the crypto universe, what’s less understood is the Ethereum protocol’s launch into prominence. In fact, one of Vitalik Buterin’s first major financial supporters was controversial venture capitalist Peter Thiel, known for investing in privatized spin-offs of Total Information Awareness, a previous US government effort to create an “all-seeing” military-surveillance apparatus, including Palantir and Facebook. (Learn more about this in Whitney Webb’s “The Military Origins of Facebook” from 2021).
As I noted in previous reporting for Unlimited Hangout, Thiel has a track-record of driving industry, and therefore the economy and the direction of myriad technologies he throws funds at, through mass investments and venture capital: “Thiel has funded or otherwise facilitated the rise of many of today’s most prominent corporations through [his venture capital firm] Founders Fund, including LinkedIn, Yelp, Airbnb, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”
Notably, Buterin received one of the Thiel Foundation’s Peter Thiel Fellowships worth $100K in 2014. Such fellowships, established in 2011, are awarded to teenage and college-aged prodigies in the STEM fields “to build new things instead of sitting in the classroom.” Indeed, the fellowships are awarded on the condition that recipients drop out of college, as did Buterin.
While the financial award alone does not fully elucidate the nature of Buterin and Thiel’s working relationship, it forces speculation as to whether Ethereum, a protocol marketed as a grassroots instrument of decentralized finance, was founded on politically neutral grounds or was in fact influenced by Thiel and his affiliates from the beginning. After all, while Buterin conceptualized Ethereum in 2013, 2014, the year he received the fellowship, was critical for Ethereum’s development and crowdfunding before the project launched in 2015.
Within the context of Thiel’s track record of influencing policymaking processes, especially in the United States (more on this subject here and here), such mass investments can be interpreted, generally, as efforts aimed not only at accruing lucrative investment returns, but also power and influence over the futures of myriad industries.
Ultimately, Ethereum’s immunity to such influence seems questionable.
Further reading:
As CBDCs Roll Out, Elite-Backed Digital Payment Systems Vie to Build the “Global Payment Standard”: In a previous piece for Unlimited Hangout, I explored crypto-players’ competition (including Ethereum) to accrue roles in ongoing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilots. In the article, I argue that elite-backed crypto interest in CBDCs is not about financial freedom per se, but rather about securing control over or otherwise directing the (digital) financial infrastructures of tomorrow.
Is Peter Thiel’s inner circle behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym? “Thiel might have known Satoshi Nakamoto, or at least participated in the same social circles as Satoshi since co-founding PayPal. Thiel worked with Elon Musk, met the founders of E-Gold, is a member of the PayPal Mafia, and befriended Balaji Srinivasan and the founder of the first Bitcoin magazine, Vitalik Buterin..” – Protos Magazine
Who is or was Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous founder of anonymous peer-to-peer payment protocol Bitcoin? Protos Magazine explored Thiel and affiliates’ possible relationship with, or even creation of, Nakamoto in an article from March of 2023.
For example, the article highlights Thiel’s previous speculations that he may have met Nakamoto at a conference on the Caribbean island of Anguilla in 2000, remarking that “We were beginning the revolution against the central banks… We were going to make PayPal [where Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, was working at the time] interoperable with E-Gold and blow up all the central banks.”
While Nakamoto’s identity still remains a mystery, Thiel’s apparent or possible proximity to the anonymous bitcoin creator merits further investigation at the time of writing.
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Israel using the AI as an excuse for their carpet bombing of Gaza is ridiculous. (The AI is only as good as the data they put into it... which is scarce . So hmm what data did they put into it???)
What's next? People claiming they crashed their car into the wall because the GPS told them to keep going straight? 😂
https://robc137.substack.com/p/looking-behind-the-curtain-of-oz