I cannot think of any other case of agreement that better sums up how Silicon Valley has changed in recent years, from the one announced on Thursday with a press release: Anduril and Meta have drafted collaboration on the design, manufacture and disposal Autonomous platforms on the battlefield.

But let’s take them from the beginning. First, Anduril Industries Inc. It is a defensive company, one of the co -founders of which is Palmer Lucky, creator of the Oculus Headset Virtual Reality, acquired by Meta (then Facebook) for $ 2 billion in 2014 – with Lucky expelled by the company later, after being funded by one of the company. Trump campaign.

The fact that the same company today welcomes him with open arms is yet another indication that such an attitude is no longer a taboo for Silicon Valley’s technology companies. (One could say that never should be taboo.)

Secondly, the development of technology for military use was once considered a “red line” for many technology engineers, at least in the post-com era. For example, in 2018, Google officials went on strike, forcing the administration to abandon its involvement in technology development projects for the army.

Today, however, the military use of their technologies is not something that companies are hiding. On the contrary, they advertise it. (Again one could say that it should always be. Who will develop technologies for the US Army if not US technology companies?)

In the case of Meta, of course, there is an additional reason. Zuckerberg’s agreement with Anduril – which is probably the beginning of Meta’s military ambitions – offers a “salvation” board in the Meta reality label, which has “burned” more than $ 70 billion since 2019. As sales do not keep up with its technological success.

I have written in the past that fitness applications are excellent products, but obviously not everyone agrees on it.

The sunglasses released together with Ray-Ban were another smart idea that has prospects, but remain a specialized product.

So perhaps the “Killer App” Mixed Reality application is literally an application for war use.

“My mission has always been to turn the soldiers into technicians,” Lucky said according to the press release. “And the products we make with Meta are exactly what they do,” he added.

An original of the “Eagle Eye” helmet (“Eagle Eye”) is expected to be handed over to the Pentagon this year, Lucky said in a podcast of journalist Asli Vance. He compared it with the equipment used by users of the Halo video game – a screen with a display where data and locations are displayed, with a cortana artificial intelligence assistant to provide vital instructions.

Another thing that this particular turn of Meta reveals is the historical course of technological innovation. Silicon Valley started as a “basis” of semiconductor development for military technologies before the “talent” accumulated in the “valley” turns to developing products for businesses and consumers, such as personal computer.

Many innovations developed in the same way – the internet, the microwave, the GPS, the super glue – but you are now getting more and more inverse. As Lucky said in the podcast above, Meta’s headset “are equally useful in the battlefield as well as in a consumer”. The same is true of artificial intelligence, which is first developed (and at the forefront level, probably always) by private technology companies.

The opportunity is excellent to ignore technology companies, and very lucrative to keep evil. Lucky says he was willing to work with Meta again because he is now a completely different company than the time he was expelled from it.

Friends again with Zuckerberg, Lucky says that in his opinion Mark had bad advisers when he fired him and that his shift to more Republican views is honest – as evidenced by his willingness to put Meta’s AI and government service.

I have no reason to question Lucky’s crisis in this regard, though I wonder if the time has come for Meta to review her corporate motto. He is currently claiming that “we are building the future of human relationships”. He may have to add: “… and the conflicts”.