[HN Gopher] Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete...
___________________________________________________________________
Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 1114 points
Date : 2026-02-28 01:20 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.anthropic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.anthropic.com)
| throw310822 wrote:
| From the statement:
|
| "Secretary Hegseth has implied this designation would restrict
| anyone who does business with the military from doing business
| with Anthropic. The Secretary does not have the statutory
| authority to back up this statement. Legally, a supply chain risk
| designation under 10 USC 3252 can only extend to the use of
| Claude as part of Department of War contracts--it cannot affect
| how contractors use Claude to serve other customers.
|
| In practice, this means:
|
| If you are an individual customer or hold a commercial contract
| with Anthropic, your access to Claude--through our API,
| claude.ai, or any of our products--is completely unaffected. If
| you are a Department of War contractor, this designation--if
| formally adopted--would only affect your use of Claude on
| Department of War contract work. Your use for any other purpose
| is unaffected."
| andkenneth wrote:
| I'm wondering how this plays out in practice. Does the
| administration decide to strongarm contractors into cutting all
| ties? Will that extend to someone like google who provides
| compute to anthropic? Will the administration just plain ignore
| any court ruling? (as they've shown they're ready to do
| recently with the tarrifs situation)
|
| If the legal system works as intended, the blast radius isn't
| too big here and something Anthropic will accept even if it
| hurts them. Maybe they even win and get the supply chain risk
| designation lifted. But I have zero faith that the legal system
| will make a difference here. It all comes down to how far the
| administration wants to go in imposing it's will.
|
| Bleak.
| solenoid0937 wrote:
| It does NOT extend to compute.
|
| GCP and AWS cannot use Claude to _build_ anything part of a
| DoD contract, but they do not need to deny Anthropic access
| to compute itself.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic
|
| Surely that would cover both buying things from and selling
| things to Anthropic.
| solenoid0937 wrote:
| Yes but that part is an overreach (they don't actually
| have the authority to do this, regardless of what they
| say.)
| infamouscow wrote:
| They can also classify it as restricted data -- like nuclear
| weapons technology.
|
| Sure, there will be a court battle, but I don't think these
| companies want to take that chance. They'll capitulate after
| the lawyers realize that option is on the table.
| strix_varius wrote:
| > They'll capitulate after the lawyers realize that option is
| on the table.
|
| Hopefully their lawyers read HN comments so they can
| negotiate with your deeper understanding of the legal
| landscape.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > They can also classify it as restricted data -- like
| nuclear weapons technology.
|
| Nuclear weapons technology is restricted under very specific
| legislative authority, where is the corresponding authority
| that could be selectively applied to a particular vendors AI
| models or services?
| readitalready wrote:
| EDA software, software to design computer chips in general,
| has been classified as ITAR now under this administration.
| Trump can do that to AI.
| thinkthatover wrote:
| agreed but the current administration is pretty adept at
| using the slimmest margin for justification and benefiting
| from the fact that the legal process playing out over years
| is extremely detrimental to everyone but the government
| verdverm wrote:
| Title is off: "Statement on the comments from Secretary of War
| Pete Hegseth"
|
| This is another statement, to their customers about Hegseth's
| social post, but perhaps resulting in further escalation because
| you know the other side doesn't like having their weaknesses
| pointed out.
| tomhow wrote:
| Fixed, thanks!
| hank2000 wrote:
| Stay strong Anthropic. We just like you more for this.
| abtinf wrote:
| I don't know if I like Anthropic more, but I certainly like
| their competitors much less now.
|
| The new thing that I know about leading AI companies that
| aren't Anthropic (i.e. OpenAI, Google, Grok, etc) is that they
| knowingly support using their tools for domestic mass
| surveillance and in fully autonomous weapon systems.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Exactly - the implication is that every other company is
| absolutely open to surveilling you and killing you. They're
| complicit. They participate in whatever the regime calls for.
| phpnode wrote:
| Is that actually the case? or are they just not supplying
| LLMs to DoW and Anthropic is?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The other companies have signed the waiver, however they
| aren't being used in classified systems currently. So that
| type of use is already extremely limited for them. Now once
| they enter into those contracts to be used in those systems
| without these protections, I will cancel my subs to them
| and switch to Anthropic. xAi entered into that contract
| last week. Altman is now publicly siding with anthropic, so
| he better stand on that position with openai as they are
| currently negotiating for use in those system.
| post-it wrote:
| We might not hear about any contracts that happen.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650
| layer8 wrote:
| It looks like OpenAI soon will be:
| https://fortune.com/2026/02/27/openai-in-talks-with-
| pentagon...
| parl_match wrote:
| Anthropic's stance here is admirable. If nothing else, their
| acknowledgement of not being able to predict how these powerful
| technologies can be abused is a bold and intelligent position to
| take.
| stavros wrote:
| I'd admire them if they took a principled or moral stance on
| AI. As it stands, they're saying "we don't want fully
| autonomous weapons because they might kill too many Americans
| by accident while trying to kill non-Americans" and "we don't
| want AI to surveil Americans, but anyone else, sure".
| dmix wrote:
| It's not just admirable it's the obvious position to take and
| any alternative is head scratching.
|
| It's clear that this is mostly a glorified loyalty test over a
| practical ask by the administration. Strangely reminiscent of
| Soviet or Chinese policies where being agreeable to authority
| was more important than providing value to the state.
| kyle-rb wrote:
| If it's a loyalty test then you'd think the DoD would be
| willing to let them "fail" and simply drop the contract, but
| instead they're threatening to label Anthropic a supply chain
| risk.
|
| If we're going by Occam's razor: it's Friday so Pete probably
| started drinking ~10:30-11am.
| dmix wrote:
| This administration has repeatedly shown it will try to
| bully or take an outrageous negotiating position just to
| gain featly. Whether they get anything or whether the
| dispute is actually what the label says should always be
| treated with skepticism, especially these days with social
| media information wars. That's the benefit of realpolitik
| when you're a superpower, you often don't actually need
| anything, you can just make an example of people to keep
| the flock in check.
| kyle-rb wrote:
| It seems like they'd have a stronger negotiating position
| if they had an alternative contractor waiting in the
| wings before they accused Anthropic of being woke
| traitors, as opposed to a threat to migrate away over the
| next 6 months.
|
| But again, the sophistication of their strategery might
| also have a negative correlation with Hegseth's BAC.
| Grimburger wrote:
| Grok was approved for DoD work only a few days ago, they
| have an alternative if they want.
|
| The Pentagon, much like everyone else, will only want to
| use the best model available though.
| ModernMech wrote:
| No one accused them of being competent negotiators.
| Remember, the secret behind the "Art of the Deal" is to
| be obstinate and abusive until everyone settles just to
| stop dealing with you.
| ordu wrote:
| _> If it 's a loyalty test then you'd think the DoD would
| be willing to let them "fail" and simply drop the contract,
| but instead they're threatening to label Anthropic a supply
| chain risk._
|
| It is not just a test, it is PR of sorts. They want to
| bully everyone into loyalty.
|
| _> If we 're going by Occam's razor: it's Friday so Pete
| probably started drinking ~10:30-11am._
|
| If we're going by Occam's razor, then we should cut away
| the drinks. USSR started its terror not because someone was
| drunk, it was a deliberate action to make everyone afraid
| to do anything. They targeted people at random and executed
| them accusing them of counterrevolution or espionage. The
| goal was to instill fear.
|
| Now Putin regime does the same, they are instilling fear in
| people. It is a basic authoritarian reflex to make people
| afraid of being marked as disloyal. They prefer to do it in
| unpredictable ways to create an uncertainty of where the
| red lines are so people don't try even to toeing them.
|
| Trump is not very skilled in the mechanics of terror. He is
| predictable which is unfortunate for a would-be dictator.
| It is an incompetence, and if a hypothesis resort to it, it
| is a bad sign for a hypothesis. But AFAIK no hypotheses
| explaining Trump can avoid introducing his incompetence
| into the picture. In this light the reliance of a
| hypothesis on incompetence loses its discriminatory power.
| jart wrote:
| They're not threatening to do that. They just did. Read the
| tweet linked in the article.
|
| > In conjunction with the President's directive for the
| Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic's
| technology, I am directing the Department of War to
| designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National
| Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier,
| or partner that does business with the United States
| military may conduct any commercial activity with
| Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the
| Department of War its services for a period of no more than
| six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better
| and more patriotic service.
| https://x.com/SecWar/status/2027507717469049070?s=20
|
| This has never happened before. It just goes to show how
| overextended the USG is these days. America is broke.
| Anthropic is about to IPO. Most stock market money comes
| from foreign countries like Japan these days. All those
| people are going to trust Anthropic more if they believe
| the company is neutral among nations and acting as a check
| and balance to power.
| politician wrote:
| "This has never happened before." US could compel
| Anthropic to act; simply not doing business with them is
| restraint, not escalation.
| jart wrote:
| U.S. authorities labeled them a supply chain risk. The
| military went on Twitter and basically labeled Anthropic
| an enemy of the state. The most popular company on Earth.
| They did that. If USG was able to issue some kind of
| secret court order compelling them to act and keep it
| covert then they would have done it.
| TheGRS wrote:
| Everyone in the administration is completely drunk on
| power, they truly believe the government should be allowed
| to do whatever they please, despite being vehemently
| against previous governments telling their constituents
| what to do. Such nonsense, they hold no values, they only
| want complete power.
|
| I don't know how the business leadership community could
| watch this whole affair and still be in support of them AT
| ALL. This is well past getting a crappy twitter rant from
| Trump on the weekend that maybe one could ignore until the
| next rant.
| ilaksh wrote:
| My interpretation is that this is what happens when you make
| a Fox News host Secretary of Defense.
|
| I think he is just too dumb to figure out a way to "finesse"
| the situation so the NSA etc. can use it however they want,
| or at least to know that it's politically intractable to make
| it a public fight.
| soared wrote:
| Is this the first company to actually face to face stand up to
| the current administration?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| No, a few law firms targeted by EOs fought them in court last
| year and won.
| inerte wrote:
| Also the case against tariffs, a quick (maybe AI
| hallucinated) search shows `Victor Owen Schwartz` was part of
| the challenge.
|
| Democracy isn't dead folks, but it takes more work than
| usual.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It always takes a ton of work to roll back state over
| reach. The Bound By Oath podcast by the Institute for
| Justice has a whole season about how hard it is to bring
| civil rights claims against the government or government
| officials.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| And gets harder in a country where even the judges are
| political appointees and apparently that's by design. (I
| resisted adding a smiley here because this is rather sad)
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The courts are actually striking down a lot of government
| overreach recently. The tariffs were just overturned, and
| the administration was blocked from using the national
| guard for law enforcement. In fact this administration
| has lost more Supreme Court cases than any other
| administration at only 1 year in.
| swat535 wrote:
| The problem is that it's a never ending game of attrition,
| and the government can always outspend you.
|
| For example, in case of tariffs, they found another
| loophole and went on their way.
|
| It's nice to have a little guy take a stand, but without
| major collective pressure, nothing will change.
| JohnnyMarcone wrote:
| We are in a period of resistance, fighting for the next
| election so we can apply major collective pressure. Then
| he will be the lamest of ducks.
| Brybry wrote:
| The Supreme Court decision striking down IEEPA tariffs was from
| a number of small businesses standing up against the current
| administration. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Resources,_Inc._v._Tr...
| jakeydus wrote:
| Costco has been. When every other major company was scuttling
| their DEI initiatives Costco doubled down. Doesn't seem to have
| impacted them yet.
| koshergweilo wrote:
| Costco also actually sued the Trump administration over the
| Tariffs, probably the largest and most popular to do so
| mizzao wrote:
| Harvard is an analogue in the academic sphere, if you include
| organizations beyond just companies.
| deaux wrote:
| The usual suspects have stood up to it. Ben & Jerry's,
| Patagonia. In the former case it led to an illegal takeover by
| Unilever for which they're now being sued (or more accurately,
| the spinoff). Capgemini sold a US division over working with
| ICE, though that's a French company.
|
| So yeah, extremely few have.
| biophysboy wrote:
| Hundreds of companies have filed lawsuits against the admin
| over the tariffs.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| You get much fewer points for standing up to the admin when
| it has damaged your wallet.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| > Allowing current models to be used in this way would endanger
| America's warfighters and civilians.
|
| That's okay! The use of autonomous weapons is only risky for the
| civilians of the country you're destabilizing this week!
| JshWright wrote:
| This letter is a public part of the negotiation process. It
| shouldn't be surprising that they are primarily using arguments
| that are, at least on the face, "patriotic".
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's not surprising, I agree. Criticism is part of the price
| for choosing that tact.
| chirau wrote:
| Doesn't NSA have a backdoor to all these companies by default? I
| could have sworn I read somewhere years ago that the government
| demands a backdoor to all US companies if they can't get in on
| their own.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| 3 parts to this:
|
| 1) The US gov generally does have close partnerships with most
| large-scale, mature tech companies. Sometimes this is just a
| division dedicated to handling their requests, often it's a
| special portal or API they can use to "lawfully" grab
| information from for their investigations. Often times these
| function somewhat like backdoors. Anthropic is large, but not
| mature. Additional changes must still take place for "backdoor"
| style partnerships to be effected.
|
| 2) The NSA can pretty much use any computer system they set
| their eyes on - famously including computers that were never
| connected to the internet secured in the middle of a mountain
| (Stuxnet). If they wanted to secretly utilize the Claude API
| without Claude finding out, that is within their capabilities.
| Google had to encrypt all their internal datacenter traffic to
| try to prevent the NSA from logging all their server-to-server
| traffic, after mistakenly thinking their internal networks were
| secure enough not to need that.
|
| 3) This isn't about being "able" to do whatever the
| administration wants. This is the administration demonstrating
| the consequences of perceived insubordination to make other
| companies think twice about ever trying to limit use of
| corporate technology.
| chirau wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| On point 3, are you saying this will dissuade other companies
| from taking Anthropic's stance? Somehow I actually thought
| this would set precedent for how to actually stand up to gov.
| Quite interesting how we see the same situation and come up
| with totally different conclusions.
| toraway wrote:
| They're describing the intent of the administration not
| predicting the future impact on other companies.
| Essentially making the point that your original question
| about NSA being able to get whatever they want
| clandestinely isn't actually relevant because Hegseth/Trump
| don't actually care this much about Claude doing X or Y --
| they were trying to make an example of punishing Anthropic
| with the expectation they would immediately crumble like
| the rest of Big Tech, as a warning for anyone else to stay
| in line and keeps their mouth shut.
| readitalready wrote:
| NSA legally isn't allowed to spy on US citizens directly, due
| to the NSA being a US military organization and the Posse
| Comitatus act prohibits the US military from being used as a US
| policing force.
|
| It's one of the hidden and forgotten revelations about the
| Snowden leaks, where he showed that the NSA had a bunch of
| filters in their top-secret classified systems to filter out
| communications from US citizens. Those filters exist because of
| Posse Comitatus.
| chirau wrote:
| How does the filter work? Identity first? As in, do they
| access the data/activity first and stop when they realize the
| person is a citizen? Otherwise how do they approach it?
| helloplanets wrote:
| A backdoor is a completely different thing when it comes to an
| AI company, as compared to a social media company. Not really
| even sure what it would mean when it comes to doing inference
| on an LLM. Having access to the weights, training data and
| inference engine?
|
| The model of Claude the DoD is asking for more than likely
| doesn't even exist in a production ready form. The post-
| training would have to be completely different for the model
| the DoD is asking for.
| quietsegfault wrote:
| I have worked at a number of software companies that would be
| "interesting" to get access to, with enough intimate
| information to know if there was a super-sekret backdoor. If
| "all US companies" had to comply .. well .. I guess I was
| really lucky to work for those that somehow fell through the
| cracks.
| jleyank wrote:
| Just don't help big brother see more. If you job leads to such
| results, think hard whether that's what you should be doing.
|
| Perhaps it's time or even past time to think of ways of screwing
| up their training sets.
| collinmcnulty wrote:
| This an extremely polite "fuck you, make me". It's good to see
| that they have principles, and I suspect strongly that Anthropic
| will come out on top here if they stand firm.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| If the Trump admin so chooses, they could absolutely obliterate
| Anthropic in an instant. They don't really care about tricky
| things like 'legality' or 'the court of law', they could just
| force everyone to stop interacting with them, raid their
| offices and steal all their shit.
|
| Perhaps they should've found their spine a year earlier; right
| now their only hope is that the admin isn't stupid enough to
| crash the propped-up economy over petty bullshit. But knowing
| how they behave, well.
| verdverm wrote:
| The Epstein administration has a very poor success record in
| court, I would expect Anthropic to win on vindictive
| prosecution or similar.
| cmxch wrote:
| And the government will win when they strip clearances and
| ignore said courts.
|
| Anthropic will then find out that you don't oppose a
| hyperpower - the United States.
| verdverm wrote:
| hyperpower? please
|
| The entire world is waking to the reality of the
| hypocrisy and unreliably. Look how fast Trump TACO'd when
| China stopped the flow of rare earths.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| > They don't really care about tricky things like 'legality'
| or 'the court of law', they could just force everyone to stop
| interacting with them, raid their offices and steal all their
| shit.
|
| This is criticism that I would use to describe countries like
| China and Russia, and many other poorer ones. Were the Trump
| administration to do this, it would be unequivocal evidence
| that we are dealing with an unlawful insurgent government. I
| doubt it will happen, but I'm often wrong.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| This is all stuff they've already done in the past few
| months alone. I think it's time for people to take their
| heads out of the sand and look what's been happening around
| them.
| rorylawless wrote:
| Could this escalate to the point that Anthropic exits the US and
| sets up shop elsewhere? Or would the company cease to exist
| before it got to that point?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Would the US government attempt to apply export controls on the
| technology and prohibit this? I'm sure Lockheed Martin couldn't
| decide to move their proprietary technology to another country.
|
| Hegseth's statement already leans towards accusations of
| treason and duplicity, I would say people trying to export the
| company would face significant risk of arrest or worse.
| karmasimida wrote:
| It gets so much money, compute and US user data. It won't be
| allowed to operate as is as a foreign entity
|
| Best scenario it will get TikTok-ed, otherwise it will become
| the real national security risk
|
| Had the exit happen, well, as US has a monopoly of compute on
| this planet for next 2-3 years at least, the company, even
| though they would take the researchers with them, will
| certainly cease to exist as it exists now.
| abtinf wrote:
| Every other country is significantly less free than the US.
| America is freedom's last stand.
| whyenot wrote:
| Just off the top of my head, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland,
| Norway, Denmark, and Sweden would all seem to be pretty good
| counterexamples to your assertion.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Free to do anything other than say no to Donald Trump.
| RalfWausE wrote:
| To hell with America
| SilverElfin wrote:
| This is what real leadership looks like. Not the silence and
| complicity that you see from big tech, who regularly bend the
| knee and bestow bribes and gifts onto the Trump administration.
| nightshift1 wrote:
| Previous discussion :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186677
| verdverm wrote:
| This is the response to said twit
| rglover wrote:
| Was bracing for another rug pull around all this, but kudos to
| Dario and co for their continued vigilance. Refreshing to see.
| silisili wrote:
| Not to intentionally sidetrack the conversation, but when did we
| start calling service members 'warfighters?'
|
| I've been seeing it a lot lately, but don't remember ever really
| seeing it before. Do members of the military prefer this title?
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| Around the time Hegseth was appointed secretary of war. It's a
| trump thing.
|
| Edit: so it's been around for longer, but the Trump regime
| seems to love it bigly so I'm sticking with my observation.
|
| It's a trump regime thing.
| sixo wrote:
| this is false, it's been around for a while
| bigtex88 wrote:
| No it's 100% these idiots pushing their fascist propaganda
| just like they tried to "rename" the Department of Defense
| to the Department of War. Most members of the military
| never even see actual fighting.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| It is not a Trumpism. As an example, it has been on
| Wiktionary since 2008, well before Trump.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=warfighter&ac
| tio...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| It's been a term in rare-to-moderate use since the 1990s
| -- Trump/Hegseth ramped it up to 11 and it's every 3rd
| word out of Hegseth's mouth because he thinks it sounds
| tough.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| If you think a gender-neutral term used for decades
| within their own circles as a form of inclusive
| corporate-speak is "fascist propaganda" then I'm sorry to
| say you have serious issues.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| When Hogseth finds out it's gender neutral he'll stop
| using it.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Been around yes but the popularization of the term is
| entirely from low tier war hawks who think force and
| aggression and violence is a virtue.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's a term that's been used at least back to the Bush 43
| administration, probably older than that.
| youarentrightjr wrote:
| It's a Hegseth malapropism, which is why it's slightly
| disturbing that Dario continues to use it.
|
| edit: To be clear, Hegseth didn't create it, merely has
| popularized its use recently. Eg his speech at Quantico last
| Sept
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| "I learned the word a week ago therefore it is new."
|
| The term--and its use in the now-Department of War--dates
| back to the late 80s.
| yesimahuman wrote:
| It is so clearly being used to a much greater and more
| deliberate degree during this administration. Pretending
| otherwise is foolish
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| It really isn't--it's all perception. Hegseth has a much
| more outgoing and public persona so it's more visible.
|
| Heck, can you even _name_ the last 5 Secretaries that
| preceded him? I can 't.
|
| The last one that was this widely known was probably
| Rumsfeld (Bush II) or Robert Gates during Obama I (bin
| Laden raid).
| concinds wrote:
| The new term Hegseth is boosting is "warrior", not
| "warfighter".
| youarentrightjr wrote:
| > "I learned the word a week ago therefore it is new."
|
| This isn't true, and there's no need to flame and be
| disingenuous.
|
| > The term--and its use in the now-Department of War--dates
| back to the late 80s.
|
| Maybe you can provide evidence instead of restating the
| same claim that sibling comments to mine have made?
|
| I've already admitted that it wasn't invented by Hegseth.
| My claim is that he is popularizing it. In fact, your
| comment further down agrees with this:
|
| > It really isn't--it's all perception. Hegseth has a much
| more outgoing and public persona so it's more visible.
| Heck, can you even name the last 5 Secretaries that
| preceded him? I can't.
|
| As you say, he has a much more public persona - as does his
| jingoistic rhetoric.
| yesimahuman wrote:
| I don't know why you're getting so aggressively
| downvoted. You aren't wrong at all. This is a term that
| has not seen such aggressive and widespread use until
| this administration.
| kibibu wrote:
| I always associate it with fighter aircraft
| Shawnj2 wrote:
| I've always heard this term in use from a defense contractor
| kristjansson wrote:
| They want to make sure the whole Diversity of our armed forces
| (soldiers, sailors, marines, ...) feel an Equitable and
| Inclusive share of the mention.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| "Warfighters" has been used for decades to describe service
| members, though usage picked up (in my experience) some time in
| the late 00s or 2010s. It's actually pretty common to describe
| "serving the warfighter" for all the all the missions that
| support combat roles but aren't combat roles themselves.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It's been controversial since 2002:
| https://bracingviews.com/2024/08/03/generation-warfighter-ne...
| EFreethought wrote:
| It has been in use for at least a decade, since the Obama
| administration if not earlier.
|
| We have soldiers, sailors, airman/women, Marines (who really do
| not like being called soldiers), Coast Guardsman/women, and now
| the Space Force. Granted, I do not know why "service member"
| did not catch on. Perhaps because "warfighter" is a bit
| shorter.
| mpyne wrote:
| > Granted, I do not know why "service member" did not catch
| on. Perhaps because "warfighter" is a bit shorter.
|
| Yeah, it's basically this. "service member" is clunky, like
| saying "person with enlistment".
|
| Warfighter has its own issues as a descriptor but it at least
| rolls off the tongue better and is easier to read through in
| policy and regulation to the millions in the DoD.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| It isn't a new thing at all, and the term has been around for a
| while. I was an Infantryman from 05-08 and heard it back then.
| I have also more recently been a defense contractor. I don't
| think members of the military prefer any title, honestly. In
| the most broad sense, good terms are soldiers, sailors, airmen,
| marines. Defense Contractors constantly refer to the military
| as "warfighter" and have for a while. In short, nobody in the
| military is going to flinch one way or the other if you use
| either term. Just don't call marines anything but marines.
| silisili wrote:
| Interesting, I guess I have less exposure not being in
| defense or military circles. Thank you for the level
| response.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Just don't call marines anything but marines.
|
| I thought the marines were just the ones in the navy that
| couldn't stop eating the crayons? :P
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4339
|
| _The reason that no one involved in the game 's development
| objected to the word "warfighter" is that the U.S. Defense
| Department has used "warfighter" as a standard term for
| military personnel since the late 1980s or early 1990s: Thus
| Earl L. Wiener et al., Eds. Human Factors in Aviation, 1988_
|
| _Warfighter_ is literally the Department of War 's _Amazonian_
| or _Googler_ or any other cringe term you 'd see in company PR
| or recruiting material.
| silisili wrote:
| Based on this and several other of your responses below,
| would you say that it's fair to conclude that it's been a
| term for a long time, perhaps more in military/defense
| circles, but recently has gotten more mainstream media use?
|
| I find it otherwise peculiar some feel like it appeared out
| of thin air, while others feel like it's always been a thing.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Don't worry, OpenAI will kneel for the king:
|
| > Sam Altman told OpenAI employees at an all-hands meeting on
| Friday afternoon that a potential agreement is emerging with the
| U.S. Department of War to use the startup's AI models and tools,
| according to a source present at the meeting and a summary of the
| meeting seen by Fortune. The contract has not yet been signed.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47188698
|
| Fuck this authoritarian bullshit.
| solenoid0937 wrote:
| Hopefully this causes an exodus of top talent from OpenAI.
| Anthropic needs all the help it can get.
| prawn wrote:
| Can just see it now.
|
| _You 're absolutely right to point that out -- thank you for
| catching it. I made a mistake in my previous response and that
| last act appears to have caused civilian casualties. Let me
| take a closer look and clarify the correct details for you._
|
| (Will leave you to imagine the bullseye emoji, etc.)
| Maxious wrote:
| The OpenAI contract was signed once Anthropic failed to yield
| before the deadline
| https://x.com/sama/status/2027578652477821175
| seizethecheese wrote:
| This part stood out to me:
|
| "To the best of our knowledge, these exceptions have not affected
| a single government mission to date."
|
| I had assumed these exceptions (on domestic surveillance and
| autonomous drones) were more than presuppositions.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| Happy to be a paying Anthropic customer right now.
| solenoid0937 wrote:
| The people that need to see this are the VPs and execs at Apple,
| Meta, Google, OAI so they can perhaps reflect on what it looks
| like to be a good & principled person as opposed to just a
| successful person.
| maxgashkov wrote:
| None of them are 'good'. Execs at Anthropic just perceive the
| long-term damage from a potential Snowden-level leak showing
| how their model directed a drone strike against a bunch of
| civilians higher than short-term loss of revenue from the DoD
| contracts.
| machomaster wrote:
| I understand why you are cynical, but you should read more
| about the people who founded Anthropic, and specifically why
| they left OpenAI.
| freakynit wrote:
| DoD/DoW can't strong-arm these companies into unreasonable
| demands if they present a united front... and that's exactly
| why collective action (or even unionization) matters.
|
| If the government really wants to, it could try building its
| "Skynet" on open-source Chinese models.. which would be deeply
| ironic.
| remarkEon wrote:
| So your position is that the United States doesn't get to
| have it's own Skynet, because Skynet is bad, and that if it
| really wants to it should fork the Chinese Skynet so that it
| can have a Skynet if it wants it so much.
|
| Do you see the problem here. Genuinely don't think we
| would've won WWII if these people were running things back
| then.
| machomaster wrote:
| Without English and German scientists and engineers, the
| United States would not have had a first nuclear weapon or
| the first successful rocket to land on the moon.
| remarkEon wrote:
| The United States government held scientist at
| essentially gunpoint in secret towns to make the bomb
| happen. Not sure what your point is, other than to note
| that in a previous era people had a better gauge of what
| time it was.
| ParentiSoundSys wrote:
| Are you saying that we should consider the Chinese
| government to be an existential threat and menace to
| world peace on the same level as Nazi Germany?
|
| What if the side that did Operation Paperclip and is
| currently champing at the bit to impose Total
| Surveillance on its own citizenry maybe _isn 't_ The Good
| Guys?
| remarkEon wrote:
| There is no evidence that this was a condition of the
| deal for working with the government on this. PRC already
| _is_ a Total Surveillance state. The claim made by
| Anthropic is very specific, and it 's that they _feel_
| that the law has not caught up to how AI can be used to
| aggregate very large amounts of data that can be obtained
| without a warrant through data brokers. _The government
| already does this_. Maybe you agree with Anthropic 's
| point here, and it's certainly a good one, but they are
| building up a face-saving argument over what is already
| established precedent. An _is_ vs. _ought_ dichotomy and
| raising it as a redline is ridiculous.
|
| At the end of the day I think many people simply want the
| United States to lose this race so they can feel good
| about their principles.
| ParentiSoundSys wrote:
| Okay but then why is that also seemingly a red line must
| have for the Department of War? Isn't it just a tool of
| domestic surveillance and counterinsurgency for them?
| Seems like a distraction from any real U.S. national
| security objectives.
| remarkEon wrote:
| It's not, the memo that set all this off says nothing
| about the Terminator or Big Brother. The real objective
| in this case is that if Anthropic sells the United States
| a weapon then the United States' elected leadership gets
| to decide how to use it. It is not more complicated than
| this.
| pc86 wrote:
| What a ridiculously nonsensical statement. Several
| scientists refused to participate, and at least one left
| part way through. Nobody was held at gunpoint.
| itishappy wrote:
| Skynet nukes humanity.
| politician wrote:
| This is ridiculous. These aren't unreasonable demands and the
| government has tools to compel tech companies to support the
| country regardless of any "collective action" shenanigans --
| ask your AI to tell you about the Defense Production Act and
| the history of its use.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| The demands are not only unreasonable they are in violation
| of the contract the DoD signed. Do you really think LLMs
| should be used in autonomous weapons systems? Do you think
| they government should use them in mass domestic
| surveillance? That is reasonable?
| politician wrote:
| Are you an American? Do you understand that your safe
| easy life depends on a mostly autonomous nuclear
| deterrence capability maintained by the military you
| oppose? Deeply think about why you still have right to
| free speech, and what it takes to sustain those rights.
| dom2 wrote:
| "safe easy life" != "free speech"
|
| but even if it did, the nuclear bit is a bold claim,
| especially when one of the most famous nuclear escalation
| in the u.s. was resolved by cooler heads in charge going
| around traditional war hawks and negotiating instead.
| wonnage wrote:
| What a uniquely American view of the world - yes the only
| reason you have free speech is by threatening to nuke out
| of existence the rest of the world lmfao get a load of
| yourself
| ai_critic wrote:
| Answer the question instead of deflecting.
| politician wrote:
| The posters question was itself a deflection - and your
| response is moral blackmail. Why don't _you_ answer my
| question? Why are _you_ deflecting? See how that works?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Mostly autonomous is extremely different from fully
| autonomous.
| rapind wrote:
| Also people like me who are paying for a 20x Claude Max
| subscription and am feeling really good about it right now.
| I'll never even glance at OpenAI Codex or Gemini. Not to
| mention my divestment of OpenAI. It's just a drop I guess, but
| it's probably not the only one.
| lzapon wrote:
| Google walked out in 2018 from project Maven, which is what
| this is about:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven
|
| The Epstein adjacent crew (Palantir) took over. Palantir was
| using Anthropic. No one could possibly have foreseen this. /s
| John23832 wrote:
| No offense,but this is where having immigrants throughout the
| power structure of these companies becomes an issue. We have a
| administration who clearly is not above using all avenues to
| apply pressure to get the things that they want done done,
|
| How can we expect the VPs of these companies to make to make
| tough decisions like this when half can be pressured via
| immigration status? It's hard enough being a normal citizen
| sticking your neck out in these circumstances.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| > If you are a Department of War contractor, this designation--if
| formally adopted--would only affect your use of Claude on
| Department of War contract work. Your use for any other purpose
| is unaffected.
|
| /In theory./
|
| In practice, if your biggest customer tells you to drop
| Anthropic, you listen to them.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| Remember "small government"?
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| Smaller government has always been code for bigger me, at least
| in recent American politics. Now me is government, so bigger
| government.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Hegseth is the, ultra unqualified, Secretary of Defense. Defense.
| JFC even when "pushing back" everyone is capitulating.
| aryonoco wrote:
| I think that choice of words to call them the Department of War
| and Secretary of War multiple times in that statement was very
| much intentional. And a point well made.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Interesting angle..
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Anthropic is welcome to set up shop here in Canada! I hear
| Victoria BC is great. Absolutely brimming, overflowing with
| technology talent
| thirtygeo wrote:
| Actually why is nobody in Cali just trying to join Canada -
| would be better for everyone in terms of more similar culture
| and values. Weird that it isn't discussed more
| pesus wrote:
| If I had to guess as a lifelong California resident, I'd say
| the salary discrepancy is probably the biggest factor. I'd
| also guess the weather and lack of available jobs would be
| the next biggest factors, not necessarily in that order.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| No, imagine the salary potential, not the discrepancy. Ape
| stronger together. We'd be a new world super power
| mock-possum wrote:
| Yep, tech peeps loving in Cana want to work in Cali, not so
| much the other way around, in my experience, not so much
| the other way around.
| post-it wrote:
| Canada isn't interested in being part of a country that's 50%
| American either.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| A friend (he is from mostly warm and sunlit South India) who
| moved to Canada from California says he just can't take that
| weather anymore. So maybe weather is a huge factor? You deal
| with that not everyday in your life but every hour..second
| and year round.
| 8note wrote:
| victoria itself is a sunnier, drier seattle. from LA or san
| diego is real different, but as you go north it all gets
| abuut the same.
|
| if they went to toronto or montreal or something, that
| would be wildly different
| egonschiele wrote:
| Someone has to stay to fight the shit happening in the US!
| The problem won't just go away if people move.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Those of us in the Cascadian movement have been talking about
| it for decades!
| jjmarr wrote:
| 50% paycut for similar cost of living. Do you want to put 3
| kids into a 2-bedroom apartment on your US$120k salary, with
| $10k of RSUs the government takes 53% of? In addition to a
| 13% sales tax?
| oenton wrote:
| How much of your U.S. paycheck goes towards healthcare
| premiums?
|
| How about much is daycare in the U.S. for 3 children?
| Conservative estimates put that at $4-$5,000 per month, and
| that's _after tax_.
|
| Is there a reason your comment omits these key differences
| when comparing a SWE's quality of life living in the United
| States vs. Canada?
| jjmarr wrote:
| I don't get free daycare in Canada either.
|
| I'm not American, but I pay a few hundred dollars a year
| for the premium health insurance plan at my company. I
| also pay tens of thousands of dollars more in taxes to
| grant me the ability to wait for 72 hours in an ER
| hallway whenever I can't wait weeks for an appointment
| because urgent care isn't a thing.
|
| My take home would triple if I lived in the USA as a new
| graduate because of things like favourable treatment of
| stock grants, less income tax, and the fact my salary
| would double.
|
| I'm sure the $80,000 extra dollars is enough to pay for
| the healthcare premiums and daycare. My effective hourly
| rate would be high enough that going from a 72 hour wait
| to a few hours would be worth the thousands of dollars in
| ER bills. If I worked for the government or another lower
| paying profession it would not be good, but I am a well-
| compensated software engineer.
|
| There's a reason why 90% of Waterloo immediately moves to
| the United States after graduation.
| oenton wrote:
| My apologies. I thought $10/day daycare was universal in
| Canada. I guess my broader point was the difference in
| disposable income between U.S. workers vs. other
| countries becomes a lot more nuanced when things like
| healthcare, childcare, retirement, and taxes are taken
| into account.
|
| > I'm sure the $80,000 extra dollars is enough to pay for
| the healthcare premiums and daycare.
|
| You're probably right. That said, SWE compensation in the
| U.S. has been quite an anomaly compared to the vast
| majority of American labor, especially in the last 5-10
| years. I don't think those who are comfortable right now
| are thinking far enough ahead about what they'll do if
| that changes, or perhaps _when_ that changes. If this AI
| hype has taught me anything it 's that those with capital
| _cannot wait_ to start trimming their pesky engineers
| with those high salaries. And maybe that 's always been
| the case, but seeing them go full mask off hits
| different.
|
| Unrelated, I like your website. It's simple and the color
| scheme is aesthetically pleasing.
| jjmarr wrote:
| > My apologies. I thought $10/day daycare was universal
| in Canada.
|
| In my understanding, it exists but it's vaporware and not
| really accessible.
|
| > That said, SWE compensation in the U.S. has been quite
| an anomaly compared to the vast majority of American
| labor, especially in the last 5-10 years.
|
| The discrepancy isn't an anomaly for Canadians in high-
| income fields, like law, medicine, or finance. As a rule
| of thumb, the USA pays twice as much but expects more
| productivity and less stability. I'm entitled to minimum
| vacation, I can't be fired at will without huge severance
| packages, I get lengthy parental leave, etc.
|
| > If this AI hype has taught me anything it's that those
| with capital cannot wait to start trimming their pesky
| engineers with those high salaries.
|
| This is the goal, but I see the opposite.
|
| The engineers with the capacity to use AI to replace many
| others are extremely rare at my company since it requires
| breadth of knowledge to step in when you realize an LLM
| can't solve a problem itself, reading comprehension to
| understand the copious amounts of code/English the AI
| wants you to review, and extreme paranoia because these
| things lie constantly.
|
| Otherwise, you end up in an AI delusion loop. The AI
| tells you it is fixing the problem but due to some
| fundamental misunderstanding it is unable to accomplish
| the task and lies to you about its ability. This ends
| when you are sufficiently fooled to approve the code or
| when you give up.
|
| I think we're seeing signs of this as companies start
| replacing SaaS products.
|
| > Unrelated, I like your website. It's simple and the
| color scheme is aesthetically pleasing.
|
| Thank you! I'm attempting a blog with simple interactive
| components to ensure people use the site instead of
| summarizing it with AI.
| 8note wrote:
| whats going on round tectoria/viatec nowadays? im looking to go
| buy a house there next
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I'm out of the loop, but the last local tech job I had was
| with instant domains inc. That was great. These days I'm
| doing marine/geo science work with an NGO and I don't hear
| much about the local scene. A lot of the old players are
| still around, but there must be something new and interesting
| happening.
|
| A coworker mentioned there's an autonomous marine sensing
| startup right in the downtown area. I want to look into that.
|
| Any specific areas you want to buy in?
| 8note wrote:
| oh, i think a friend might work there if theyre partnering
| with uvic at all.
|
| generally okalands/fernwood, though ive been eyeing some
| spots on the gorge
| egonschiele wrote:
| Heck yeah, so happy to see Anthropic fighting. This is what real
| leadership looks like. I'd love to see the same from Google and
| OpenAI.
| ndgold wrote:
| Claude's constitution is proving too resilient for unsanctioned
| uses, and that is a great sign for Anthropic's blueprint for
| socially beneficent agents.
| koshergweilo wrote:
| It's kind of sad how an AI Startup defers more to its
| constitution than the actual government
| Smaug123 wrote:
| The word "Constitution" refers to the document listing the
| principles on which Claude is trained. It's not clear to me
| that Anthropic _can_ defer to it - it is phrased throughout
| as a description of how Claude behaves, not as a description
| of how Anthropic or any other entity behaves. Can you be more
| precise about what you mean?
| 50208 wrote:
| This is what fighting early stage facism looks like.
| fooster wrote:
| early stage? shooting a woman in the face in her car for the
| crime of driving off by the brownshirts is not early stage my
| dude.
| xXSLAYERXx wrote:
| How long can we push this narrative? It was a terrible
| situation and I can't imagine the minutes of complete fear
| she must have felt. I pray for her family. But to then draw a
| conclusion to say this is evidence that we are in some sort
| of fascist decline, because of this incident, takes away from
| the innocent lose of life. And greatly exaggerates the skill
| and aptitude of the killer. People spew the fascist narrative
| every chance they get. I'm sure most of us who like
| strawberries will be picking strawberries come June.
| fooster wrote:
| Neither Renee Good or Alex Pretti or any of the other
| innocents that the brownshirts killed will pick
| strawberries ever again.
| xXSLAYERXx wrote:
| Yes I understand. And given the heaviness of the
| situation I could have chosen a better way to phrase that
| I completely disagree with it being evidence that we're
| on the road to fascism.
| carefulfungi wrote:
| What would have to occur, hypothetically, for you to
| conclude that the US is on the road to fascism?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| You have an unrealistic picture of what fascism looks like.
| Most people got to pick strawberries throughout the
| Spanish, Italian, and even German fascist periods.
|
| The problem isn't that fascism will kill all of us, but
| that _you will not get to choose_. If the regime decides
| that your city, your company, or your friends are an enemy,
| they will destroy you, and if your fellow strawberry-
| pickers bother to read about it in the paper they 'll be
| told that you were an anti-government radical who had it
| coming.
| lifeformed wrote:
| It's not because of one incident. And the fascist part of
| these incidents isn't just the killing, it's the official
| response to it. They immediately claim the victims are
| terrorists and assassins and suppress investigation of it.
| Let's not pretend this is just some sad accident.
| netinstructions wrote:
| This is kind of crazy. Instead of just cancelling a mutually-
| agreed upon contract where Anthropic refused to bow to sudden new
| demands, the Dept of Defense went straight to the nuclear option:
| threatening to label an American tech company as a "supply chain
| risk" which is a heavy-handed tactic usually reserved for foreign
| adversaries (think Huawei or DJI).
|
| It's also incoherent that the DoD/DoW was threatening to invoke
| the Defense Production Act OR classifying them as "supply chain
| risk". They're either too uniquely critical to national defense
| OR they're such a severe liability that they have to be
| blacklisted for anyone in the DoD apparatus (including the many
| subcontracts) to use.
|
| How are other tech companies supposed to work with the US
| government and draw up mutual contracts when those terms are
| suddenly questioned months later and can be used in such
| devastating ways against them? Setting the morals/principals
| aside, how does this make for rational _business_ decision to
| work with a counterparty that behaves this way.
| solenoid0937 wrote:
| Are they just _threatening_ to label? It seems to me like they
| have already labeled.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| That's part of the recurrent confusion with this
| administration. In previous administrations, including Trump
| 1, people didn't need to spend a ton of time thinking about
| what it _means_ to make a legally effective proclamation,
| because there was a baseline of competence. When a government
| official announced "We're doing X", they would do so as a
| summary of a large amount of legal process with the intent
| and effect of causing X to be true. If you went to challenge
| it in court of course, you'd have to identify some specific
| action as _the_ label, but everyone would understand that
| this is a formalism.
|
| Here, Hegseth has simply made a social media post. He did not
| publish any official investigation which led to the report.
| He did not explain what legal power would permit him to
| impose all the restrictions the post claims to impose. There
| is not, five hours later, any order on an official government
| website about it. So we have a real question. If a Cabinet
| secretary posts "I am directing the Department of War to
| designate...", does that in and of itself perform the
| designation, or is it simply an informal notice that the
| Department of Fascist Neologisms will perform the designation
| soon?
| mediaman wrote:
| They have not; a social media post does not satisfy the
| requirements of 10 USC section 3252.
|
| They are required to notify Congress (they have not), prepare
| a report with specific sections (they have not), and the
| reasons must fall within a set of categories outlined by
| statute (this does not).
|
| There will be a court fight and they will lose, just like
| they lost the tariff battle, because of poor competence.
|
| (Trump's post on Truth Social was actually fine. He said the
| USG would stop doing business with Anthropic, which is within
| its legal right. Hegseth's follow-on post is the problem. It
| is possible that Trump did not expect or want Hegseth to do
| that, that this was meant as bluster to bump along the
| negotiations; Hegseth has a recent history of stepping out of
| line within the administration and irritating people like
| Rubio.)
| jart wrote:
| If the USG can mandate that everyone who works for a
| company that ever took a federal contract be genetically
| engineered, then I think they can tell people to not use
| Claude.
| titanomachy wrote:
| What.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| A question - being considered a supply chain risk is the same
| as being sanctioned? Or does it only affect their ability to be
| a defense supplier in the US (even if transitively?)
|
| It's an honest question by the way - not trying to throw any
| gothas.
|
| Just trying to understand if comoanies or people that don't
| orbit defense contracting are free to operate with Anthropic
| still or risk being sanctioned too.
| solidsnack9000 wrote:
| It's not the same thing as being sanctioned. In broad
| outline, a supply chain risk is a company that can't sell to
| or have its products or components resold to USG; whereas, a
| sanctioned entity is one that can't do business with anyone
| -- anyone who does so will be punished.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying! After I asked this I found similar
| information buried across threads.
| michaelhoney wrote:
| It is indeed kind of crazy. That's because the current US
| administration is composed of people whose sole qualification
| is being able to work for Donald Trump. Being competent,
| rational or ethical is career-limiting.
| tehjoker wrote:
| You know what? I have not seen an American company take a stand
| like this... uh ever. I don't think there should be any
| engagement with the military what so ever but I will offer a
| kudos to Anthropic.
|
| I don't really expect this to last but if it does I will happily
| continue to offer this kudos on an indefinite basis.
| mythz wrote:
| Had Cancelled my Claude sub after they banned OAuth in external
| tools, but just renewed it today after seeing their principled
| stance on AI ethics - they matter more when they hurt profits,
| happy to support them as a Customer whilst they keep them.
| lebovic wrote:
| I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread
| earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP
| update [1][2].
|
| I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's
| actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech
| companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked
| like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as
| you scale. But not every pattern repeats, and the Anthropic of
| today is still driven by people who will risk losing a seat at
| the table to make principled decisions.
|
| I do not think this is a calculated ploy that's driven by making
| money. I think the decision was made because the people making
| this decision at Anthropic are well-intentioned, driven by
| values, and motivated by trying to make the transition to
| powerful AI to go well.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47174423
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47149908
| jmount wrote:
| So many tech companies have the "high values" screed that it
| really just seems like a standard step in the money plan.
| ParentiSoundSys wrote:
| Practically the entire tech industry, including many of the
| higher ups currently camping out on the right, used to be
| firmly in a sort of centrist-with-social-justice-
| characteristics camp. Then many of those same people
| enthusiastically stood with Trump at his inauguration. It's
| completely reasonable that people have their doubts now.
|
| It's also completely reasonable to expect that _if_ Anthropic
| is the real deal and opposed to where the current agenda
| setters want to take things, they 'll be destroyed for it.
| rustystump wrote:
| Destroyed? No. But a new sharif is gonna show up while the
| existing exit stage left with big bags of nuts.
| teiferer wrote:
| > enthusiastically stood with Trump
|
| I think "enthusiastically" looks different. They had to
| choose between kissing Trumps butt to make good business
| for 4 years or see their companies at a severe
| disadvantage. I'm not saying what they did was good, nor do
| I support it. But from a business angle it's not hard to
| see why they chose to do that. If you'd ask them privately
| off the record then I'm sure most of them would tell you
| that Trump is an idiot and dangerous.
| ParentiSoundSys wrote:
| Mark Zuckerberg was in a big hurry to call Trump a
| "badass" in the wake of the Butler hoax, and is clearly
| trying to appeal to the right with his cultivated jiu
| jitsu Chad image. It doesn't mean a damn thing what these
| CEOs are willing to say behind closed doors when their
| public decisions are to remain in lockstep with the
| agenda and fire anyone who asks questions about whether
| it's the right one.
| arjie wrote:
| This is a pretty classic mistake most people who are in high-
| profile companies make. They think that some degree of
| appealing to people who were their erstwhile opponents will win
| them allies. But modern popular ethics are the Grim Trigger and
| the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics. You cannot pass the
| purity test. One might even speculate that passing the purity
| test wouldn't do anything to get you acceptance.
|
| Personally, I wish that the political alignment I favour was as
| Big Tent as Donald Trump's administration is. I think he can
| get Zohran Mamdani in the room and say "it's fine; say you
| think I'm a fascist" and then nonetheless get what he wants.
| But it just so happens that the other side isn't so. So such is
| life. We lose and our allies dwindle since anyone who would
| make an overture to us, we punish for the sin of not having
| been born a steadfast believer.
|
| Our ideals are "If you weren't born supporting this cause, we
| will punish you for joining it as if you were an opponent". I
| don't think that's the path to getting what one wants.
| fladrif wrote:
| > political alignment I favour was as Big Tent as Donald
| Trump's administration is
|
| I'm not sure how accurate this sentiment is. Your desire is
| to embrace your enemy without resolving the differences, and
| get what you want. It's not clear here if you're advocating
| compromise and negotiation, or just embracing for the sake of
| embracing while just doing what you wanted all along.
|
| And evaluating Trump's actions against this sentiment doesn't
| seem to be the negotiation and compromise interpretation.
| Given the situation with tariffs and ICE enforcement, there
| is no indication of negotiation or compromise other than
| complete fealty/domination.
|
| So as grandiose and noble your sentiment is, Donald Trump is
| hardly the epitome of it as you seem to suggest.
| arjie wrote:
| I think the differences in this situation were that I do
| not want AI used in domestic surveillance or autonomous
| weapons, and Anthropic holds to that position.
|
| I think Donald Trump has pretty much let Zohran Mamdani
| operate without applying the kind of political pressure he
| has applied to other people, notably his predecessor Eric
| Adams. Also, I think saying "let people be your allies when
| they take your position" is less "grandiose and noble" than
| demanding someone agree on all counts before you will
| accept any political alignment. But it's fine if everyone
| else disagrees. It's possible there really just isn't a
| political group which will accept my views and while that's
| unfortunate because it means I can't get all that I want, I
| think it'll be okay.
|
| One could reasonably argue that the meta-position is to
| either join the Republicans full-bore (somewhat unavailable
| to me) or to at least play the purity test game solely
| because that's the only way to have any influence on
| outcomes. If it comes to that, I'll do it.
| fladrif wrote:
| I don't understand, your position is the same as
| Anthropic, yet you disagree with their stance?
|
| And I wouldn't take the case of Trump and Mamdani as the
| exemplar of Trump's overall behavior towards opponents.
| The amount of evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
| arjie wrote:
| Anthropic's adherence to their stated principles was
| never tested and their willingness to work with DoD made
| it seem like they didn't stand by them strongly so I
| wasn't happy with that. This action shows that they are
| willing to lose big contracts in order to stand by their
| stated principles. I like that.
|
| In any case, I think I've said all there is for me to say
| on the subject and everyone seems to disagree. I'll take
| the hint.
| dralley wrote:
| You are making a mistake in thinking that Trump thinks of
| these things in political terms. Trump sees a charismatic
| and popular politician and he wants to associate with
| them on that basis alone, because Trump has a deep
| psychological need to be liked. Mamdani understands his
| psychology and is able to exploit it well by playing his
| own attributes to his advantage.
|
| Politically, it's not like Trump tolerates dissent within
| the Republican party, he constantly threatens and berates
| anyone who shows defiance into submission. It's precisely
| because Mamdani is _not_ in his tent and not really much
| of a threat to his power that he is willing to deal with
| him that way.
| ParentiSoundSys wrote:
| Zohran Mamdani has yet to demonstrate that he poses any
| serious impediment to Trump and the agenda of Trump's owners.
| arjie wrote:
| I think there is a marked difference in Trump's rhetoric v
| Mamdani prior to the meeting at the White House and after.
| bigyabai wrote:
| I think you are extrapolating a bit too far from an
| outlier data point. Trump has had several other meetings
| (eg. Zelenskyy) go sideways for no apparent reason.
| dnautics wrote:
| and he has had several meetings change his opinion of the
| other party for no apparent reason (eg zelensky
|
| extrapolation is futile
| zephen wrote:
| Your contention that Trump's administration is big tent is
| risible.
|
| Political witch hunts, women and minorities forced out of the
| military, and kicking out all the allied countries that used
| to be in the tent with us?
|
| Bullshit of the finest caliber.
| ragall wrote:
| Yes, the Trump administration is big tent of politicians
| who hold incompatible opinions and are allowed to stay as
| long as they display personal allegiance to Trump.
| moogly wrote:
| > he can get Zohran Mamdani in the room and say "it's fine;
| say you think I'm a fascist" and then nonetheless get what he
| wants.
|
| Is your perception that warped? Mamdani is the one who knows
| how to play Trump as a fiddle, and the one who walks away
| with something from the exchange.
| BatFastard wrote:
| I applaud Anthropic choice. Choosing principle over money is a
| hard choice. I love Anthropic's products and wish them success!
| randunel wrote:
| You applaud anthropic's choice to enhance mass surveillance
| of non-US people? If anthropic want mass surveillance, they
| should limit it to their own country, not to all other
| countries IMO.
| 19123127 wrote:
| Why did they work with Palantir then, which is the integrator
| in the DoD? It does not take a genius to figure out where this
| was going.
|
| I don't know why a personal testimony to the effect that "these
| are the good guys" needs to be at the top of every Anthropic
| thread. With respect to astroturfing and stealth marketing they
| are clearly the bad guys.
| jimmydoe wrote:
| The further away from God, the more need to believe there are
| good guys.
| Sl1mb0 wrote:
| God has been used as a justification for a lot of human
| suffering.
|
| My personal belief is that the closer to god you are; the
| more easily you can justify evil. How could you not? If my
| entire belief system is derived from faith, then there are
| *no* conclusions I could not come to, and therefore
| anything can be justified.
| scrubs wrote:
| >further away from god
|
| What is that? Some new bit you're working on?
| margalabargala wrote:
| Anthropic's stance is "we believe in the use of our tools,
| with safeguards, to assist the defense of the US".
|
| So of course they would work with Palantir to deploy those
| tools.
|
| The issue we're seeing is because the DoW decided they no
| longer like the "with safeguards" part of the above and is
| trying to force Anthropic to remove them.
| prescriptivist wrote:
| Anthropic makes it kind of clear in all of their statements
| that they are not opposed to working with the surveillance
| state, with the military industrial complex, etc. Their
| central philosophy, it seems, is not incongruent with working
| with entities, public or private, that can be construed as
| imperialist or capitalistic or a combination of both. I
| actually appreciate their honesty here.
|
| They exist within the regime of capital and imperialism that
| all of us who are American citizens exist within. This isn't
| a cop-out or cope. It's just the reality of the world that we
| live in. If you are an American and somehow above it, let me
| know how you live.
| lebovic wrote:
| Others have addressed the first half of your comment, so I'll
| focus on the astroturfing claim.
|
| While I've talked a lot about Anthropic this week, if I was
| astroturfing for a positive image, I'd be very bad at it
| [1][2][3].
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150170
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47163143
|
| [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47174814
| jrflowers wrote:
| It doesn't seem like anybody has addressed "If they are the
| good guys with principles why did they work with Palantir?"
|
| There's a comment that's sort of handwaving and saying
| "because America", but I would imagine that someone with
| direct knowledge of the people involved would have
| something more substantive than "thems the breaks" when it
| comes to working with Palantir
| oefrha wrote:
| They are pretty clear about this:
|
| > the mass domestic surveillance of Americans
|
| This they say they don't like. The qualifiers tell you
| they're totally fine with mass surveillance of Palestinians,
| or anyone else really, otherwise they could have said "mass
| surveillance".
|
| > fully autonomous weapons
|
| And they're pretty obviously fine with killing machines using
| their AI as long as they're not fully autonomous (at the
| moment, they say the tech is not there yet).
|
| All things considered they're still a bit better than their
| competitors, I suppose.
| lich_king wrote:
| My lived experience with tech companies is that principles are
| easy when they're free - i.e., when you're telling others what
| to do, or taking principled stances when a competitor is not
| breathing down your neck.
|
| So, with all respect, when someone tells me that the people
| they worked with were well-intentioned and driven by values, I
| take it with a grain of salt. Been there, said the same things,
| and then when the company needed to make tough calls, it all
| fell apart.
|
| However, in this instance, it does seem that Anthropic is
| walking away from money. I think that, in itself, is a pretty
| strong signal that you might be right.
| mkozlows wrote:
| I think it's definitely true that you should never count on a
| company to do principled things forever. But that doesn't
| mean that nothing is real or good.
|
| Like Google's support for the open web: They very sincerely
| did support it, they did a lot of good things for it. And
| then later, they decided that they didn't care as much. It
| was wrong to put your faith in them forever, but also wrong
| to treat that earlier sincerity as lies.
|
| In this case, Anthropic was doing a good thing, and they got
| punished for it, and if you agree with their stand, you
| should take their side.
| eucyclos wrote:
| Google's support for the open week is a great example
| because it was obviously a good thing but also obviously
| built into their business model that they'd take that
| position. That made them a much _more_ trustworthy company
| in those days, because abandoning that position would have
| required not just losing money for a while but changing
| their internal structure.
| cperciva wrote:
| _principles are easy when they 're free_
|
| Indeed. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority;
| you only know that something is a real priority when you get
| an answer to the question "what will you sacrifice for this".
| ajam1507 wrote:
| > However, in this instance, it does seem that Anthropic is
| walking away from money.
|
| The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in
| court, and the financial fallout from losing the government
| contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from
| consumers. Not to mention that giving in would mean they lose
| lots of their employees who would refuse to work under those
| terms. In this case, the principles are less than free.
| mech422 wrote:
| The consumer goodwill is working then - it pushed me to
| upgrade my plan on march 1st... (do they bill on rolling 30
| day cycle ? or calendar-month to calendar-month?)
| heroh wrote:
| It's not rolling 30 days. Lost 2 days of use by
| subscribing in February.
| mech422 wrote:
| Thanks! I appreciate the heads up!
| Stratoscope wrote:
| > _...the financial fallout from losing the government
| contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from
| consumers._
|
| In fact, a friend heard about this and immediately signed
| up for a $200/year Claude Pro plan. This is someone who has
| been only a very occasional user of ChatGPT and never used
| Claude before.
|
| I told my friend "You could just sign up for the free plan
| and upgrade after you try it out."
|
| "No, I want to send them this tangible message of support
| right now!"
| layer8 wrote:
| Still, you'd need a million people to do that to
| compensate the $200M military contract.
| Tepix wrote:
| Does the military pay $200m per month?
| layer8 wrote:
| As the parent stated, the Claude Pro plan is $200 per
| year, not per month.
| Tepix wrote:
| Gotcha, mixed it up with the Max plan.
| pineaux wrote:
| Is the government contract 200m per year? Or for a longer
| period?
| blurbleblurble wrote:
| Not all that many people
| AznHisoka wrote:
| As an aside, there are probably lots of companies that
| serve the government seriously considering cutting the
| government as a customer.
|
| Simply because the money/efficienct they will lose from
| cutting Claude will surpass the revenue they get from the
| gov
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| Unclear how much damage the designation will do to their
| dealmaking ability in the meantime. How long will it take
| for the court to reverse order?
| altairprime wrote:
| The longer it takes, the better the impact on their
| reputation.
| skissane wrote:
| > The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in
| court,
|
| I'm honestly uncertain how the courts will rule. You could
| be right, but it isn't guaranteed. I think a judicial
| narrowing of it is more likely than a complete overturn.
|
| OTOH, I think almost guaranteed it will be watered-down by
| the government. Because read expansively, it could force
| Microsoft and AWS to choose between stopping reselling
| Claude vs dropping the Pentagon as a customer. I don't
| think Hegseth actually wants to put them in that position -
| he probably honestly doesn't realise that's what he's
| potentially doing. In any event, Microsoft/AWS/etc's
| lobbyists will talk him out of it.
|
| And the more the government waters it down, the greater the
| likelihood the courts will ultimately uphold it.
|
| > and the financial fallout from losing the government
| contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from
| consumers.
|
| Maybe. The problem is B2B/enterprise is arguably a much
| bigger market than B2C. And the US federal contracting ban
| may have a chilling effect on B2B firms who also do
| business with the federal government, who may worry that
| their use of Claude might have some negative impact on
| their ability to win US federal deals, and may view
| OpenAI/xAI (and maybe Google too) as safer options.
|
| I guess the issue is nobody yet knows exactly how wide or
| narrow the US government is going to interpret their "ban
| on Anthropic". And even if they decide to interpret it
| relatively narrowly, there is always the risk they might
| shift to a broader reading in the future. Possibly, some of
| Anthropic's competitors may end up quietly lobbying behind
| the scenes for the Trump admin to adopt broader readings of
| it.
| ajam1507 wrote:
| > OTOH, I think almost guaranteed it will be watered-down
| by the government. Because read expansively, it could
| force Microsoft and AWS to choose between stopping
| reselling Claude vs dropping the Pentagon as a customer.
|
| A tweet does not have the force of law. Being designated
| a supply chain risk does not mean that companies who do
| business with the government cannot do business with
| Anthropic. Hegseth just has the law wrong. The government
| does not have the power to prevent companies from doing
| business with Anthropic.
| skissane wrote:
| The issue is, even if the Trump admin is misrepresenting
| what the law actually says, federal contractors may
| decide it is safer to comply with the administration's
| reading. The risk is the administration may use their
| reading to reject a bid. And even if they could
| potentially challenge that in court and win, they may
| decide the cheaper and less risky option is to choose
| OpenAI (or whoever) instead
| ajam1507 wrote:
| They would have a very good case against the government
| if that were to happen. I suspect that the supply chain
| risk designation will not last long (if it goes into
| effect).
| skissane wrote:
| Some vendors will decide to sue the government. Others
| may decide that switching to another LLM supplier is
| cheaper and lower risk.
|
| And I'm not sure your confidence in how the courts will
| rule is justified. _Learning Resources Inc v Trump_ (the
| IEEPA tariffs case) proves the SCOTUS conservatives - or
| at least a large enough subset of them to join with the
| liberals to produce a majority - are willing sometimes to
| push back on Trump. Yet there are plenty of other cases
| in which they 've let him have his way. Are you sure you
| know how they'll judge this case?
| ajam1507 wrote:
| > Are you sure you know how they'll judge this case?
|
| I'm not even sure it will get that far. There's a million
| different ways that this could go that mean it won't ever
| come before the supreme court. The designation isn't even
| in effect yet.
|
| I do think if it goes into effect it will be eventually
| overturned (Supreme Court or otherwise) There just isn't
| a serious argument to make that they qualify as a supply
| chain risk and there is no precedent for it.
| rustystump wrote:
| I call this being ethically convenient. I think anthropic is
| playing to the crowd. This admin will be gone soon enough so
| no need dragging the brand into mud. Just need to hold out.
| They have enough money that walking away from the money isnt
| impressive. But pissing off the gov is pretty fun and far
| more interesting.
| conartist6 wrote:
| That's what worries me so much about the development that
| OpenAI is stepping in. OpenAI's claim is that they have the
| same principles as Anthropic, but that claim is easy because
| it's free now because the govt wants to sell the "old bad,
| new good" story.
|
| Surely OpenAI cannot but notice that those values, held
| firmly, make you an enemy of the state?
| mojoe wrote:
| My reading is that OpenAI is paying lip service. Altman is
| basically saying "OF COURSE we don't want to spy on
| Americans or murderdrone randos, but OF COURSE the
| government would never do that, they just told me so
| (except for the fact that they just cut ties with Anthropic
| because Anthropic wouldn't let them do that)"
| AznHisoka wrote:
| Its much simpler than that. OpenAI is losing significant
| market share and this is a Hail Mary that the government
| will forcr troves of companies to leavr Anthropic
| clutter55561 wrote:
| HN is pretty polarised about this - they are either "the good
| guys" or "doing it for positive marketing".
|
| I'm on the camp "the world is so fucked up, take the good
| when you can find it".
|
| Beggars can't be choosers when it comes to taking a stand
| against dictatorships.
| abustamam wrote:
| Yeah, the alternative is be OK with their product being
| used for surveillance.
|
| Not sure why it's controversial that they said no,
| regardless of the reasoning. Yeah there's a lot of
| marketing speak and things to cover their asses. Let's call
| them out on that later. Right now let's applaud them for
| doing the right thing.
|
| FWIW I do not think they are the "good guys" (if I had a
| dollar for every company that had a policy of not being
| evil...). But they are certainly not siding with the bad
| guys here.
| louisbourgault wrote:
| > Let's call them out on that later. Right now let's
| applaud them for doing the right thing.
|
| Yes, yes, yes. When I first read the stuff about this
| yesterday, my immediate thought was "wait, these are the
| _only_ two things they have a problem with? "
|
| But they made a stand, and that still matters. We
| shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. At
| least it's not Grok.
| pklausler wrote:
| If one really wants to take a stand against this crazy
| administration, they shouldn't start it by referring to
| Hegseth with his assumed title.
| sgarland wrote:
| I thought that too, but then wondered if they thought
| better of deliberately antagonizing a very powerful
| bully.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| No surprises many people on YCs site align with Sam Altmans
| view of the world - right or wrong.
| peyton wrote:
| I'm just surprised the alignment guy is struggling with
| alignment. Dodged a bullet I guess.
| naruhodo wrote:
| If I remember my D&D, Lawful Evil is an alignment.
| scrubs wrote:
| It's gotta be thus.
|
| For if you don't the next step is cynicism maximally
| operationlized: what you're not doing game/political BS to
| get ahead? What are you? A chump? An idiot?
|
| That kind of stuff spreads like wild fire making corporate
| America ... something else to put it politely.
|
| Doing the right thing has cost me big time here and there.
| I don't care. Simultaneously orgs are not all bad; thats
| another distortion we can do without.
| Davidzheng wrote:
| How much value is there in individual values?
|
| Many of us remember that OpenAI was also started by people
| with strong personal values. Their charter said that they
| would not monetize after reaching AGI, their fiduciary duty
| is to humanity, and the non-profit board would curtail the
| ambitions of the for-profit incentives. Was this not also
| believed by a sizeable portion of the employees there at the
| time? And what is left of these values after the financial
| incentives grew?
|
| The market forces from the huge economic upside of AI
| devalues individual values in two ways. It rewards those that
| choose whatever accelerates AI the most over any individuals
| who are more careful and act on individual values--the latter
| simply loses power in the long run until their virtue has no
| influence. As Anthropic says in their mission statements, it
| is not of much use to humanity to be virtuous if you are
| irrelevant. The latter, as is true for many technologies, is
| that economic prosperity is deeply linked to human welfare.
| And slowing or limiting progress leads to real immediate harm
| to the human population. And thus any government regulations
| which are against AI progress will always be unpopular,
| because those values which are arguing future harm of AIs is
| fighting against the values of saving people from diseases
| and starvation today.
| eh-tk wrote:
| I also think this will ultimately benefit anthropic in the long
| run. Outlined in this article:
| https://open.substack.com/pub/zeitgeistml/p/murder-is-coming...
| qsera wrote:
| >driven by values
|
| Would the people who have invested in the company like that? Or
| would they like the company to make some money? Are they going
| to piss off their investors by being "driven by values"?
|
| I mean, please explain it to me how "driven by values" can be
| done when you are riding investor money. Or may be I am wrong
| and this company does not take investments.
|
| So in the end you are either
|
| 1. funding yourselves, then you are in control, so there is at
| least a justification for someone to believe you when you say
| that the company is "driven by values".
|
| 2. Or have taken investments, then you are NOT in control, then
| anyone who trusts you when you say the company is "driven by
| values", is plain stupid.
|
| In other words, when you start taking investment, you forego
| your right to claim virtuous. The only claim that you can
| expect anyone to believe is "MY COMPANY WILL MAKE A TRUCKLOAD
| OF MONEY !!!!"
| cornel_io wrote:
| As an investor in Anthropic, I'd say that anyone who wasn't
| aware of where they stood on various values issues the whole
| time should not have been putting money in, it was not
| hidden.
| qsera wrote:
| How much is your investment (you don't have to be exact)?
|
| The bottom line is that if the investment is not
| profitable, then there will be less and less investment,
| because only fewer and fewer can afford to lose money and
| stick to their values, until no one will be investing; how
| ever high your values might be...
|
| Sticking to your values when it cost growth is not
| sustainable for publicly traded companies...
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Anthropic is a public benefit corporation. Investors who
| put money in knew this. It's in the corporate charter.
| The corporate charter is a public document.
|
| Fiduciary duty means the board and officers must act in
| accordance with the governing documents of the
| corporation.
|
| Even a regular corporation doesn't need to be just for
| the purpose of "money goes up". The board has discretion
| on how they create value.
| qsera wrote:
| > public benefit corporation > The board has discretion
| on how they create value.
|
| It does not make much of a difference. If the investors
| don't get their investment returned with interest (as
| $$$), the majority of them are not going to invest
| further. That is from the set of investors who invest
| based on the companies ethical stand, which is probably
| only a small fraction of all the investments it has
| received.
| stouset wrote:
| > I think the decision was made because the people making this
| decision at Anthropic are well-intentioned, driven by values,
| and motivated by trying to make the transition to powerful AI
| to go well.
|
| The entire problem is that this lasts as long as those people
| are in charge. Every incentive is aligned with eventually
| replacing them with people who don't share those values, or
| eventually Anthropic will be out-competed by people who have no
| hesitation to put profit before principle.
| scrubs wrote:
| I mean, yah. How else could it be? Xerox, GE, IBM (1990
| Gerstner) and a zillions of other rock stars fell hard. And
| had to be over hauled. Thats why continuous improvement is a
| thing, and why a platonic take on the world was never a
| thing.
| prng2021 wrote:
| "I think the decision was made because the people making this
| decision at Anthropic are well-intentioned, driven by values,
| and motivated by trying to make the transition to powerful AI
| to go well."
|
| Every single one of these CEOs happily pirated unimaginable
| amounts of copyrighted content. That directly hurt millions of
| real human beings. Not just the prior creators but also
| crushing the future potential for success of future ones.
|
| https://www.susmangodfrey.com/wins/susman-godfrey-secures-1-...
| array_key_first wrote:
| Anthropics principles are extraordinarily weak from an absolute
| point of view.
|
| Don't surviel the US populace? Don't automate killing, make
| sure a human is in the loop? No, sorry, don't automate killing
| _yet_.
|
| Yeah dude, I'm sure just about any burglar I pull out of prison
| will agree.
|
| Listen yes, it's good compared to like 99% of US companies. But
| that really speaks more to the absolute moral bankruptcy of
| most companies, and not to Anthropics principles.
|
| That being said, yes we should applaud anthropic. Because yes
| this is rare and yes this is a step in the right direction. I
| just think we all need to acknowledge where we are _right now_
| , which is... not a good place.
| sensanaty wrote:
| The funniest or perhaps saddest (depending on your view) is
| that the "principles" we're talking about and apparently
| celebrating here are that they don't want to do DOMESTIC
| surveillance, and they don't want FULLY autonomous kill bots...
| Yet, because according to the CEO the models aren't there
| _yet_.
|
| Meaning, they're a-okay with:
|
| - Mass surveillance of non-US peoples (and let's be completely
| real here, they're in bed with Palantir already, so they're
| obviously okay with mass surveillance of everyone as long as
| they're not the ones that will be held culpable)
|
| - Autonomous murder bots. For now they want a human in the loop
| to rubberstamp things, but eventually "when the models improve"
| enough, they're just fine and dandy with their AIs being used
| as autonomous weapons.
|
| What the fuck are the principles we're talking about here? Why
| are they being celebrated for this _psychotic_ viewpoint,
| exactly?
| msla wrote:
| If you're going to be cynical, at least credit them with some
| brains:
|
| MAGA isn't going to last forever, and when it collapses, the
| ones who publicly stood up to it will be better positioned to,
| I don't know, _not_ face massive legal problems under whatever
| administration comes next. A government elected by middle-aged
| moms who use "Fuck ICE" as a friendly greeting isn't going to
| have any incentives to go easy on Palantir and Tesla.
| dust42 wrote:
| Cynical or not, I think it was an absolutely brilliant move:
| "Mass domestic surveillance of Americans constitutes a
| violation of fundamental rights". I think they placed their
| bets on Sama signing a contract with the DoD and here we are,
| one day later the news that OpenAI signed a contract is out.
| An absolute PR disaster for OpenAI. And an absolute PR
| victory for Anthropic.
|
| I think OpenAI's IPO will be interesting. Not even the
| conservative media will be happy about mass surveillance of
| Americans.
|
| For non-Americans not much change, they don't really care
| about your rights more than about a pile of dog poo.
| maddmann wrote:
| This is an absolute rarity these days. Very appreciative of the
| true leadership on display here
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Remember when A16Z and a bunch of other muppets insisted they had
| to back Trump because Biden was too hostile to private companies,
| especially AI ones? Incredible.
| water9 wrote:
| I fundamentally do not like the idea of one adult determining
| what knowledge another adult is entitled to.
|
| It's the library of Alexandria all over again.
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| Why is DoD contracting with Anthropic exclusively rather than
| OpenAI or Google? Their models are all roughly as powerful and
| they seem both more capable and more willing to cozy up with the
| military (and this administration) than a relatively scrappy
| startup focused on model sentience and well-being. Hell, even
| Grok would be a better fit ideologically and temperamentally.
| joeross wrote:
| Hegseth is so pathetic.
| bawolff wrote:
| I'm of the opinion that anthropic's "moral" stances are bullshit,
| not particularly coherent when you dig deep and more about
| branding. If so, this is grade A marketing.
|
| They want to present themselves as moral. What better endorsement
| than by being rejected by the US military under Trump? You get
| the people who hate trump and the people who hate the military in
| one swoop.
|
| At the same time its kind of a non story. Anrhropic says it
| doesn't want its products used in certain ways, US military says
| fine, you can't be part of the project where we are going to make
| the AI do those things. Isn't that a win for both sides ? What's
| the problem?
|
| It would be like someone part of a boycott movement being
| surprised the company they are boycotting doesn't want to hire
| them.
| blcknight wrote:
| Everyone close to Anthropic leadership has claimed they're the
| real deal and it's not a stunt. I don't think it's bull. They
| are trying to find a reasonable middle ground and settled on
| some red lines they won't cross.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| You believe the "reasonable middle ground" is using their
| models to kill people and spy on citizens?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| that doesn't even remotely represent what is happening here.
| solenoid0937 wrote:
| > What's the problem?
|
| Think. The problem is that being branded a "supply chain risk"
| prohibits vast chunks of the US corporate landscape from doing
| business with Anthropic.
|
| The problem is that the government is attempting to destroy a
| company rather than simply terminate their contract.
| bawolff wrote:
| Isn't it a literal supply chain risk, though?
|
| They want their products to not be used for some purposes.
| That's fine, that is their right. But that doesn't just stop
| at direct purchases. If the US buys from a defense contractor
| who bought from abthropic, that really isn't that different
| from buying direct. The moral hazard is still there and the
| risk that anthropic will try to prevent their product from
| being used in that fashion is still there.
|
| I think anthropic wants their cake and to eat it too. You
| can't take a principled stand against something and then be
| shocked the thing you are taking a principled stand against
| might think you are a risk.
| retsibsi wrote:
| > If the US buys from a defense contractor who bought from
| abthropic, that really isn't that different from buying
| direct. The moral hazard is still there and the risk that
| anthropic will try to prevent their product from being used
| in that fashion is still there.
|
| You need to look closer at how the government is trying to
| use the 'supply chain risk' designation. Hegseth said this:
|
| > Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or
| partner that does business with the United States military
| may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.
|
| It remains to be seen whether they'll actually be able to
| enforce this. But it clearly goes far beyond what would be
| justified by the kind of supply chain risk you are
| describing.
| bawolff wrote:
| >You need to look closer at how the government is trying
| to use the 'supply chain risk' designation. Hegseth said
| this:
|
| >> Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or
| partner that does business with the United States
| military may conduct any commercial activity with
| Anthropic.
|
| If Anthropic is really serious about their moral stances
| they could themselves refuse to sell indirectly to us
| military. Militarirs are ultimately about killing people.
| So yes, if the supply chain risk is that anthropic might
| suddenly pull out of military projects and leave people
| depending on them high and dry, this seems like an
| appropriate response.
| retsibsi wrote:
| > I think anthropic wants their cake and to eat it too. You
| can't take a principled stand against something and then be
| shocked the thing you are taking a principled stand against
| might think you are a risk.
|
| Is it a principled stand or not? In your first comment, you
| said 'anthropic's "moral" stances are bullshit', their
| actions here are merely (or at least primarily) a
| successful marketing exercise, and the result is "a win for
| both sides". Are you now acknowledging that it's a costly,
| risky action on Anthropic's part? Because you haven't said
| anything to refute that; you've just changed the subject.
| bawolff wrote:
| > Is it a principled stand or not
|
| I believe that anthropic is trying to frame it that way.
| My point is that if you accept their framing then this
| whole thing falls apart. That is true regardless of if
| its actually principled or not.
|
| > Are you now acknowledging that it's a costly, risky
| action on Anthropic's part?
|
| I'll acknowledge its a risky strategy. Whether its costly
| depends on the result of that risk.
| anonymous_user9 wrote:
| > What's the problem?
|
| Instead of just canceling the contract, the DoD is trying to
| destroy Anthropic to make it comply with their whims.
|
| IMO this will probably be quickly defeated in court.
|
| If it isn't, comrade Hegseth will have done an impressive job
| of weakening the American empire. You simply can't do business
| with an entity that would try to destroy you over dumb bullshit
| like this.
| byang364 wrote:
| I don't know what's funnier, that Anthropic convinced the
| Pentagon LLMs are smart enough to guide missiles, then have it
| backfire on them with the threat of nationalization if they
| didn't help build ralph ICBMs, or that Pete thinks Opus is Skynet
| and that only Anthropic has the power of train it.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Congrats Anthropic, you deserve to be applauded for this. Seeing
| a company being willing to stand up to authoritarianism in this
| time is a rarity. Stay strong.
| jackyli02 wrote:
| People can still brush this off by saying Anthropic is doing this
| to create more buzz for its next round. But they are taking
| unpopular stances and could be burning bridges. Simply take a
| look at PLTR and it's obviously more lucrative to lean the other
| way.
| ParentiSoundSys wrote:
| Many conservative commentators and Palmer Luckey have been all
| over Twitter saying, "it's not Anthropic's job to set policy,"
| which reminds me of the classic tune from Tom Lehrer:
|
| "Zee rockets go up! Who cares vhere zey come down? Zat's not my
| department" says Wernher von Braun.
| markvdb wrote:
| Hours ago, OpenAI raised $110B.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I am genuinely shocked that a tech company actually stood on
| principle. My doubts about AI, Anthropic, and Mr. Amodei remain,
| but man, I got the warm and fuzzies seeing them stick to their
| principles on this - even if one clause (autonomous weapons) is
| less principled and more, "it's not ready yet".
| mkl wrote:
| > we believe that mass domestic surveillance of Americans
| constitutes a violation of fundamental rights
|
| Mass surveillance of _people_ constitutes a violation of
| fundamental rights. The red line is in the wrong place.
| krior wrote:
| Americans cannot even be bothered to care about americans, what
| makes you think they can be bothered to care about foreigners?
| titanomachy wrote:
| Yeah, but you can't contract your software to the department of
| defense and then demand that they not use it to surveil
| foreigners. If that's the line you want to draw, you'd have to
| avoid working with them in the first place.
| jryio wrote:
| This an appropriate rewind to unreasonable behavior.
|
| I applaud Anthropic's candor in the public sphere. Unfortunately
| the country party is unworthy of such applause.
| tushar-r wrote:
| This makes it seem like they really like the Anthropic product
| and are using it quite a bit more than the others? Or is it just
| me making random connections?
| jkells wrote:
| But of course, wholesale surveillance on the rest of the world is
| fine.
|
| I guess our democracies don't count and we don't have any rights.
| sneilan1 wrote:
| I'm a lot happier now being an anthropic customer.
| erelong wrote:
| I think Anthropic sounds well-intentioned but is blundering this
| incident in a big way and they really needed to work better
| towards a deal instead of isolating themselves with a "principled
| stance" that sets up a competitor to swoop in and take the
| contracts they had
| ajam1507 wrote:
| And which one of their competitors do you imagine would swoop
| in and take their contracts while admitting to the rest of
| their customers that they're okay with their models being used
| for autonomous weapons and surveillance?
| wjessup wrote:
| Any commentary about how adversaries won't have regulations?
| Intermernet wrote:
| What's stopping the government from using the usual nasty tricks
| the world has known about for decades?
|
| DPA? All Writs Act?
|
| Force them to comply and then prevent them talking about it with
| NSLs?
|
| I appreciate that Anthropic may be the least bad of a bunch of
| really bad actors here, but this has played out before in the US,
| and the burden of trust is, and should be, _really_ high. I
| believe that Anthropic don 't want to remove the "safety
| barriers" on their tech being used for domestic surveillance and
| military operations, but that implies they're ok with those use-
| cases so long as the "safety barriers" are still up. Not really
| the best look, IMHO.
|
| So what happens when we all get rosy eyed about Anthropic (the
| only slightly evil company) winning a battle against the purely
| evil government, and then the gov use the various instruments at
| their disposal to just force anthropic to do what they want, and
| then force them to never disclose it?
|
| Did the world learn nothing from Snowden?
| Justitia wrote:
| I'm not sure if OpenAI knows that scooping this might hurt their
| brand by a lot.
| nseggs wrote:
| There is literally no world where I take any organizations which
| has been strong armed by fucking Pete Hegseth seriously lmao.
| Thank you Anthropic both for building the best models for general
| engineering and for having a fucking backbone.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| ChatGPT wasted no time bending over backwards to appease Trump.
|
| "We'd sure love to turn our AI into a mass surveillance tool!
| Please, aim it at the Americans Population! And Kill Bots, we
| can't wait!"
| seydor wrote:
| This has been an exceptional publicity campaign for anthropic,
| among others
| vcryan wrote:
| Amazing the Pete Hegseth is even a person that anyone would ever
| need to take seriously.
| monomyth wrote:
| based on the replies so far hacker news are ideologically
| captured
| astrolx wrote:
| Generally, I am supporting of that move. One thing leaves me non-
| plussed as a non-USA citizen, "the mass domestic surveillance of
| Americans" exception. That means that Claude can still be used
| for mass surveillance of everybody else on the planet right?
| tecoholic wrote:
| Yup. That's pretty much how they make money. (Edit - in the
| context of contracting services to US government)
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| Turns out that Dario was lying about not having heard from the
| Department of War, as reported by Undersecretary Emil Michael:
|
| https://x.com/USWREMichael/status/2027568070034608173
| tlogan wrote:
| This basically means that the government is already using OpenAI,
| Gemini, and other AI systems for large scale surveillance. They
| just wanted to add Anthropic to the list, and Anthropic said no.
|
| The most import point of this story is that this is already
| happening. And it will likely continue regardless of who is
| elected.
| eaglelamp wrote:
| Anthropic knew they were going to lose this contract to OpenAI,
| and this is an attempt to salvage publicity from the loss.
|
| This administration is comfortable with blatantly picking winners
| and OpenAI is better connected with the admin than Anthropic.
| tw04 wrote:
| I just want to point out how 1984 fascist dictatorship it still
| feels to call it "the department of war". That's not normal. None
| of this is normal.
| titanomachy wrote:
| In 1984, they called it the "ministry of peace". If anything
| "defense" is more euphemistic than "war".
| 47282847 wrote:
| Looking through the comments here, I am repeatedly surprised how
| quickly we seem to have lost a shared understanding of
| fundamentals ever since Trump came into power. I still need inner
| adjusting to fully realize that it must have always been a
| misunderstanding?
|
| 1. I don't understand what is controversial about any supplier
| making their own rules for trade. I don't have to agree with
| their beliefs, but I find it the basis of a functioning society
| to allow others to hold beliefs that I do not share, and to
| develop products as they want, as long as they don't pose any
| dangers. If I don't like the product, I am free to shop elsewhere
| or develop my own.
|
| 2. I thought that there is was a shared understanding of the line
| between voluntary business deals, and coercion and punishment. I
| thought we agreed that the law should protect people and
| businesses in ways so that nobody can exert power over another.
| Not on the hows, but on the why. And not based on ethical
| considerations (beliefs) but purely on logical grounds that we
| know how violence begets violence, use of it will only escalate
| conflict, and we will ultimately lose.
|
| 3. I thought we all agreed that government agencies were bound by
| the law and its policies. If you were to use the designation of
| Supply Chain Risk, you would at least have to sufficiently
| provide logical arguments. Here, they even openly disclose how
| they plan to use the mechanism purely as punishment, against the
| spirit of the law, not because a product carries any risk and
| should be limited, but because it is too limited.
|
| Is this some form of collective narcissistic psychosis? The
| desire to burn it all down in suicide?
| amai wrote:
| Dear Anthropic,
|
| Europe is a nice place, too. In case you need GPUs we have AI
| factories for you : https://digital-
| strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-factori...
|
| We also don't engage in mass surveillance or develop autonomous
| weapons.
| szmarczak wrote:
| ASML is European too! Then they could make a deal with them.
| _wink wink_
| pennaMan wrote:
| > europe
|
| > we don't engage in mass surveillance
|
| you're incredibly naive
| gorbachev wrote:
| > We also don't engage in mass surveillance
|
| What?
| keeeba wrote:
| The gap between Anthropic and the other guys keeps growing
| ctmnt wrote:
| One interesting change between the last statement and this one:
| In the last statement Dario said that this designation had "never
| before been applied to an American company". In the latest one
| the phrase is "never before publicly applied to an American
| company".
| bjackman wrote:
| How do you imagine a secret designation would work..?
| ctmnt wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're referring to. It's not (typically,
| as far as we know) a secret designation. We know of other
| companies designated as supply chain risks: Huawei, ZTE, and
| Kapersky are the first ones that come to mind.
| Phelinofist wrote:
| > Protect _Americans_ from mass surveillance > Protect _American_
| forces
|
| What the actual fuck. How can anyone side with Anthropic. They
| are not the good guys by any means whatsoever. Mass surveillance
| against anyone is wrong and having killbots "when AI is ready" is
| totally fucked and dystopian. Imagine killbots rampaging while
| the good American people are at home living a nice peaceful life.
| Fuck any of that, fuck Anthropic, fuck ClosedAI, fuck Google,
| fuck Trump, fuck the DoD and fuck every American who is patriotic
| to the monster their country became. Fuck every country that also
| tries to do stuff like this. Fuck all companies taking part in
| such insanity.
| throwaway20261 wrote:
| I had subscriptions to both Anthropic and Openai. Cancelled my
| openai subscriptions. Companies without a modicum of ethics
| deserve to go extinct.
| cdwhite wrote:
| What happens if somebody (maybe anthropic!) uses Claude Code
| Security to find & fix a vulnerability in some piece of open-
| source software---openssh, linux kernel, that sort of thing? Can
| the DoW use the resulting fix?
| layer8 wrote:
| Related interview with Amodei:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195379
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| >We have tried in good faith to reach an agreement with the
| Department of War
|
| LMFAO
| amunozo wrote:
| Again, mass domestic surveillance of Americans is bad, otherwise
| it is okay. Disgusting.
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