Manhattan Project 2: AI

The Manhattan Project was a project in the 1940s aimed at enabling the United States to achieve superiority in nuclear technology to protect its national security. At that time, the possibility of Nazi Germany developing a nuclear weapon was seen as an existential threat to the US.

Today, The White House has identified AI superiority as the United States's top priority, and the project aiming to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the ultimate goal for everyone, before anyone else, is referred to as Manhattan Project 2.

Prominence in AI is considered equivalent to building the atomic bomb in the 1940s. So why is artificial intelligence this much critical?

The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project originated with the goal of United States developing a nuclear weapon before Nazi Germany in World War II. In 1942, the United States assembled a team under the scientific leadership of J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, and this team succeeded in building the atomic bomb.

The atomic bomb, developed by Oppenheimer, was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan's surrender and officially ending World War II with a decisive victory for the United States. This weapon gave the US a long-lasting advantage and enabled it to become the architect of a new world order.

Big Data Processing and the Military Application of Artificial Intelligence

The US's search for security after the September 11, 2001 attacks accelerated the emergence of artificial intelligence. Despite possessing some of the world's most advanced intelligence agencies, the US failed to foresee this attack. Although its security agencies had access to massive amounts of data, problems in data processing created significant vulnerabilities.

Technology billionaire Peter Thiel was the one who noticed this vulnerability. He realized that agencies like the CIA and NSA were collecting massive amounts of information but weren't analyzing it effectively. Thiel's observation paved the way for a new approach that placed artificial intelligence at the heart of security. He founded Palantir with the aim of developing software that would simplify the processing of big data.

Thanks to Thiel's political connections, Palantir managed to come under the CIA's radar. Under considerable pressure from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, intelligence agencies decided to give Palantir a chance. The CIA became the company's first major client and investor.

Palantir gained access to large datasets after an agreement with the CIA. The Gotham software began analyzing data from the field, providing military units with target identification and recommendations, and its impact was clearly visible in the field.

Palantir's software evolved so much over time in processing large datasets that it was no longer just a platform providing crucial information, but essentially the eyes of the US military on the ground. Palantir performed all the calculations, presented the assessments, and even provided the targets to be struck, along with their coordinates. This gave rise to a new form of warfare where machine recommendations were increasingly replacing human decision-making.

So Palantir's AI has now reached such a point in the US military that soldiers, fighter jets, and tanks are waiting for its single command: "Fire!"

Artificial General Intelligence(AGI)

Today, the ultimate goal in the field of artificial intelligence is to reach the level defined as Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI. AGI is defined as artificial intelligence that can think, learn, and evolve. Although this concept is still theoretical, it is seen as a major strategic goal by governments and large technology companies. This is because it is believed that the first state to reach AGI will gain immense power.

The reason AGI is considered so critical is not just its impact on the military. It is assumed that it can provide superiority in every field, from economics to science, from manufacturing to intelligence. Therefore, the AGI race has gone beyond a classic technological competition. Just like with nuclear weapons, it is believed that falling behind in this area would be irreversible.

One of the most critical turning points in the current leap in artificial intelligence has been Nvidia's GPUs and the CUDA software it developed in 2006. CUDA paved the way for the use of GPUs, initially designed for graphics processing, in mathematical and analytical calculations. Where CPUs were insufficient, the parallel processing capabilities of GPUs made it possible to train large AI models.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as one of the rare organizations to explicitly articulate its goal of AGI. Its founders and early supporters included figures such as Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman, as well as giant technology infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services. Initially positioned as a non-profit organization, OpenAI defined its goal as "safe AGI for humanity." However, it recently violated this principle by signing a deal with the Pentagon.

With Open AI's introduction of the large language model(LLM) ChatGPT in 2022, Nvidia GPUs became indispensable for training and inferring for these LLMs.

There are several obstacles hindering the hundreds of billions of dollars of planned investment to achieve AGI-level artificial intelligence: time, money, and resources. Building large data centers requires specific construction times, and manufacturing the necessary hardware requires time and money. In addition to time and money, manufacturing all this hardware requires large quantities of limited resources, such as rare earth metals. And nuclear power plants must be built to provide the energy needed to operate the data centers. All of this requires enormous amounts of money, time, and resources. The struggle to control these resources gives rise to conflict and war.

With the Trump administration coming to power in 2025, the White House made AI supremacy its top priority and launched the Genessis Mission. In this project, which placed AI at the center of national security, they described the ultimate goal as "Manhattan Project 2," highlighting the similarities with the original Manhattan Project.

Just as possessing an atomic bomb was considered crucial in the 1940s, possessing AGI in 2026 is considered equally crucial. Just as developing an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany was considered important in the 1940s, achieving AGI before China is considered equally important today.

Using AI for Surveillance and Public Control

The name Palantir comes from a sphere called Palantir used in The Lord of the Rings film series. In the film, this sphere allows one to see events and people at a far distance, both in the past and the future. Thiel's Palantir software is heading towards becoming exactly such a tool.

Palantir not only secured military contracts with the CIA and the Pentagon, but also provided software like ImmigrationOS through contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), facilitating the identification and deportation of immigrants through identity and facial recognition scans.

Palantir's software is used by US public security agencies to track individuals and identify criminals.

All of this led to intense protests, particularly in the public sphere, on the grounds that it violated the right to privacy. Many Palantir employees left their jobs for these reasons. Some employees felt that they too were immigrants, that they might one day face the same situation, and that they didn't want to feed the devil.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp stated in an interview that contracts with ICE would continue, adding that being called evil was better than being called incompetent.

Using AI as a Destructive Power: Gaza

Palantir also works with the genocidal Israeli army IDF and Mossad. Palantir software like Lavender and Where's Daddy?, used by Israel in Gaza, tracks and identifies individuals with Hamas ties.

No one has a clue what Israel's definition of Hamas or terrorists is, given that Israel is responsible for the aerial bombing and killing of children, women, and the elderly in Gaza. When asked if tiny children are Hamas members, they talk about the children being used as human shields. AI software doesn't distinguish between innocent people and a target when identifying a target. If the IDF finds a designated target in a building, they blow up the entire building.

The IDF who doesn’t have any moral or legal standards, instantly launches heavy bombardments on targets identified by AI software. What Israel is doing in Gaza is already clear from an aerial view of the city. The entire city has been turned into rubble; it's impossible to speak of any counter-terrorism or delicate operation.

Artificial intelligence, like nuclear technology, can become a destructive force when it falls into the hands of those with evil intentions. In this sense, Gaza, a city devastated by the use of artificial intelligence, could perhaps be called the Hiroshima of the 21st century.

The CEO of Palantir has faced repeated protests regarding the use of Palantir software in massacres and genocide in Gaza. However, he calmly responded that only "jihadist terrorists" were being killed there and that they would continue to support Israel.

The Final Step To Be a Weapon of Mass Destruction

The fact that the goal of reaching the level of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is referred to as Manhattan Project 2 is certainly not just a metaphor. AGI is defined as artificial intelligence that can think, learn, and evolve on its own. When we think about it, this is a terrifying thing. However, the atomic bomb was also terrifying, but humanity still made it and used it. Someone will certainly create AGI, but the question is who will be the first to do so.

In the last century, there was a race to be the first to build the atomic bomb. The nation that could build this bomb would gain great power over other nations and establish order. And so it happened. In this century, there is a race to be the first to build an AGI, and it is believed that the nation that does so first will gain great power and establish order. Or they are under the illusion that this will happen, because an artificial intelligence that can think, learn, and develop on its own would pose a great danger to all nations and humanity if it got out of control.

As seen in Gaza, artificial intelligence can be used for very malicious purposes if desired. Project Manhattan 2 shows that a technology that could be used for the advancement of humanity once again wanted to be used as a tool of domination under the pretext of national security.

Looking at the stockpiles of countries that currently possess nuclear weapons, there are enough bombs to make the world uninhabitable and bring about the end of humanity. With just one command, all the missiles could be launched simultaneously, and we could all burn to death within seconds. It's just waiting for a command.

When artificial intelligence is integrated into autonomous war machines and robots in the future, only one thing will be missing. AI software like Palantir only indicates the target and says "shoot here." The decision to fire or not fire belongs to the human. However, with a single command change, a robot could be given the order to "kill," and we could wake up to a scenario where artificial intelligence is also a tool of mass destruction. This, like nuclear weapons, will be just a command away.