# Palmer Luckey — "a shadow campaign being waged in the United Nations" > [!quote] "There is a shadow campaign being waged in the United Nations by many of our adversaries to trick Western countries that fancy themselves morally aligned into not applying AI for weapons or defense." > — Palmer Luckey, Pepperdine University speaker series, October 1, 2024 ## Context At the same October 1, 2024 Pepperdine appearance where he branded himself a propagandist and praised the "warrior class," [[Palmer Luckey]] argued that efforts to restrain military AI are not sincere ethics but a sabotage operation. He named Russia, China, and Iran as adversaries working to "cripple" Western capabilities through international norms while developing their own AI weapons without restraint. ## Why this matters The claim is a rhetorical inversion that recurs across the defense-tech right: arms-control advocacy is recoded as enemy disinformation, so that the case *against* [[Autonomous Weapons]] can be dismissed without engaging it. It conveniently casts Luckey's own commercial interest — selling autonomous systems — as a patriotic imperative, and frames Western publics worried about killer robots as naïve marks being played by foreign powers. The structure mirrors his other Pepperdine remarks: skepticism of his product is never a good-faith position, only naïveté or manipulation. ## Verification - **Primary reporting:** [TechCrunch, October 1, 2024](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/01/palmer-luckey-every-country-needs-a-warrior-class-excited-to-enact-violence-on-others-in-pursuit-of-good-aims/). - **Secondary:** [AOL/Business Insider](https://www.aol.com/news/andurils-palmer-luckey-slammed-restrictions-054213007.html); [LambHam summary](https://www.lambham.com/post/palmer-luckey-slams-ai-restrictions--calls-for-military-and-weapons-use/). - **Status:** Verbatim; the underlying "shadow campaign" claim is Luckey's assertion, not an established fact. ## Related quotes - [[Palmer Luckey - warrior class enacting violence]] — same event. - [[Palmer Luckey - propagandist who twists the truth]] — same event. - [[Palmer Luckey - world police to world gun store]].