Palmer Luckey, a Hawaiian-shirt wearing, inventor, innovator and polarizing entrepreneur has been promising to disrupt the US defense industry. In 2017 Palmer Luckey, designer of the Oculus Rift virtual reality head-mounted display, founded Anduril Industries, a autonomous weapons startup, to radically transform the defense capabilities of the United States and its allies by fusing artificial intelligence with the latest hardware advancements. At Anduril Palmer integrates a consumer technology business model with mission-driven objectives, enabling rapid product development and deployment, setting the company apart from other players in the defense industry. The company’s software so unique that it is being used across multiple branches of the U.S. military and in both the Russia-Ukraine War and Israel-Hamas War.
His deep interest in defense technology was driven by his time at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies Mixed Reality Lab, where he built hardware used to research immersive treatment for US military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. He continued to support various military applications of virtual reality during his time at Oculus, informing his belief that radical modernization of US military technology is a prerequisite for preserving our way of life.
Palmer began attending Golden West College and Long Beach City College at the age of 14 and studied at California State University, Long Beach, before leaving the school to build Oculus VR.
Palmer will discuss his story, how the technology industry should ethically participate in the defense sector, ethical applications of AI in defense, and more.
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