[HN Gopher] Our Agreement with the Department of War
___________________________________________________________________
Our Agreement with the Department of War
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 149 points
Date : 2026-02-28 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (openai.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (openai.com)
| -_- wrote:
| "The Department of War may use the AI System for all lawful
| purposes, consistent with applicable law, operational
| requirements, and well-established safety and oversight
| protocols."
|
| So DoW did get the "all lawful purposes" language they were
| after, with reference to existing (inadequate, in my view)
| regulations around autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.
| yusufozkan wrote:
| This is the same company that started as a nonprofit dedicated to
| open AI safety research, then became a capped-profit entity, then
| effectively closed-source, then dropped the cap, and is now
| pursuing full for-profit conversion. Every single guardrail
| they've set for themselves has been quietly revised or removed
| once it became inconvenient. Anyone want to bet on how long those
| exclusions last?
| cebert wrote:
| Money always wins
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| The comment below mine is flagged but it shouldn't be. I
| believe Annie Altman.
| xvector wrote:
| I used to write off Annie's statements as mad raving, but
| the more I see how Sam acts the more I'm starting to think
| she might be telling the truth after all.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Those exclusions are very carefully worded to sound iron-clad
| while actually having the strength of wet tissue paper.
| chiararvtk wrote:
| "What if the government just changes the law or existing DoW
| policies?"
|
| _Our contract explicitly references the surveillance and
| autonomous weapons laws and policies as they exist today, so that
| even if those laws or policies change in the future, use of our
| systems must still remain aligned with the current standards
| reflected in the agreement._
|
| So, this apply only if they changes the law, not if they break
| the law.
|
| "What happens if the government violates the terms of the
| contract?"
|
| _As with any contract, we could terminate it if the counterparty
| violates the terms. We don't expect that to happen._
|
| WE COULD [...]. Yeah, I believe
| eoskx wrote:
| Not great? Seems kind of loose language? It isn't OpenAI saying
| no autonomous weapons use, but only that use must be consistent
| with laws, regulations, and department policies: "The Department
| of War may use the AI System for all lawful purposes, consistent
| with applicable law, operational requirements, and well-
| established safety and oversight protocols. The AI System will
| not be used to independently direct autonomous weapons in any
| case where law, regulation, or Department policy requires human
| control, nor will it be used to assume other high-stakes
| decisions that require approval by a human decisionmaker under
| the same authorities."
|
| More of the same here. Not a wonder why the DoD signed with
| OpenAI and instead of Anthropic. Delegating morality to the law
| when you know the law is not adequate seems like "not a good
| thing".
|
| "For intelligence activities, any handling of private information
| will comply with the Fourth Amendment, the National Security Act
| of 1947 and the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act of
| 1978, Executive Order 12333, and applicable DoD directives
| requiring a defined foreign intelligence purpose. The AI System
| shall not be used for unconstrained monitoring of U.S. persons'
| private information as consistent with these authorities. The
| system shall also not be used for domestic law-enforcement
| activities except as permitted by the Posse Comitatus Act and
| other applicable law."
| arppacket wrote:
| Exactly, they're letting the lawless administration decide what
| the lawful purposes and the policies in general are.
|
| The "human approval" will be someone clicking a YES button all
| the time, like Israeli officers did in the Gaza bombing.
| kingo55 wrote:
| "Vibe killing"
| eoskx wrote:
| OpenAI: "let's delegate morality to laws that we know are wholly
| inadequate for AI to absolve ourselves of any moral
| responsiblity."
| SilverElfin wrote:
| OpenAI basically bribed the government into attacking Anthropic,
| via political donations to the MAGA PAC. They couldn't not
| compete with an inferior product so Altman and Brockman went this
| route.
|
| As for OpenAI's defense - not buying it.
|
| "OpenAI's President Gave Millions to Trump. He Says It's for
| Humanity": https://www.wired.com/story/openai-president-greg-
| brockman-p...
| twtw99 wrote:
| Well..The fact they reached out and not the other way around
| says a lot.
|
| "According to The Wall Street Journal, Anthropic approached
| 1789 Capital for a potential nine-figure investment during its
| Series G funding round in early 2026. The venture firm, where
| Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, ultimately declined the
| investment for ideological reasons. Read the full report at The
| Wall Street Journal."
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/woke-ai-
| spat-...
| blurbleblurble wrote:
| too late bro
| hereme888 wrote:
| Well worded. Plentiful protections for themselves and others.
| piker wrote:
| > The Department of War may use the AI System for all lawful
| purposes, consistent with applicable law, operational
| requirements, and well-established safety and oversight
| protocols. The AI System will not be used to independently direct
| autonomous weapons in any case _where law, regulation, or
| Department policy requires human control_ , nor will it be used
| to assume other high-stakes decisions _that require approval by a
| human decisionmaker under the same authorities._ Per DoD
| Directive 3000.09 (dtd 25 January 2023), any use of AI in
| autonomous and semi-autonomous systems must undergo rigorous
| verification, validation, and testing to ensure they perform as
| intended in realistic environments before deployment.
|
| The emphasized language is the delta between what OpenAI agreed
| and what Anthropic wanted.
|
| OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do whatever
| it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its own morals
| into the use of its products.
|
| I personally can agree with both, and I do believe that the
| Administration's behavior towards Anthropic was abhorrant, bad-
| faith and ultimately damaging to US interests.
| NickNaraghi wrote:
| That language is not consistent with:
|
| > No use of OpenAI technology to direct autonomous weapons
| systems
| piker wrote:
| That depends on whether you view the cited authorities as
| already prohibiting that usage. I don't have an opinion on
| that, but some folks on both sides of the isle might have
| strong arguments that they do.
| tensor wrote:
| It's still not consistent. OpenAI made a statement that
| simply isn't true. They agree to all lawful use, INCLUDING
| using it to deploy weapons as long as it's legal. It
| happens to not be legal at the moment, but that doesn't
| mean it can't be changed and authorized.
| piker wrote:
| That's a fair point, and I'm not so much defending sama's
| statements after the fact but rather trying to
| rationalize the OpenAI position.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Rationalize the OpenAI position? Sam Altman gets money
| from DoD. He has no morals. He doesn't care if people die
| because of his product. It's not hard.
| pamcake wrote:
| OpenAI and sama are literally sauing they are fine with
| facilitating (and even performing) any scale of killing
| and surveillance _as long as they 're not held
| accountable_.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| We live in a world of Trump-esque "truths" where if you claim
| something once, nothing subsequent matters.
|
| Not surprised to see a guy like Altman adopt the strategy
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| No, this very devious and insidious. What the executive branch
| believes is legal is the real agreement here. Trump can say
| anything is legal and that's that. There is no judicial
| overview, there are no lawyers defending the rights of those
| who are being harmed. Trump can tell the pentagon "everyone in
| minnesota is a potential insurrectionist, do mass surveillance
| on them under the patriot act and the insurrection act".
|
| Mass surveillance doesn't require a warrant, that's why they
| want it, that's why it's "mass". warrants mean judicial
| overview. Anthropic didn't disagree with surveillance where a
| court (even a FISA court!!) issued a warrant. Trump just
| doesn't want to go through even a FISA court.
|
| This is pure evil from Sam Altman.
|
| Is anyone listing these peoples names somewhere for posterity's
| sake? I'd hate to think this would all be forgotten. From
| Altman to Zuckerberg, if justice prevails they'll be on the
| receiving end of retribution.
| piker wrote:
| That view does seem to be consistent with Anthropic's. It's
| sad if true, since it implies a belief that the system cannot
| be just in modern contexts.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| mass surveillance is explicitly unlawful in the US. it is
| in the bill of rights. By definition it is injustice under
| the law. Even for terrorists in the US they have to go
| through a FISA court and get warrants.
|
| Consider this, the bill of rights stipulates that a soldier
| cannot be stationed on your property in times of peace, but
| in times of war it will be allowed. It makes exceptions for
| times of war. but even in times of war, 4th amendment's
| search and seizure protection don't have an exception. Even
| in times of insurrection and rebellion. To deliberately
| violate that for personal and political reasons, that in
| itself is treason. With that intent alone, even without
| action, it invalidates all legitimacy that government has.
| If a clause in a contract is broken, the contract is
| broken. The bill of rights is the contract between the
| people and their government that gives the government its
| powers to rule, in exchange for those rights. With the
| contract explicitly, deliberately and with provable
| malicious intent broken, the whole agreement is
| invalidated.
|
| I'll even say this, the US military itself is on the hook
| if they stand by and let this happen.
| piker wrote:
| Right, which is probably the point made by the
| negotiators on behalf of the US Government. "We don't
| want Anthropic's standard, we want the Constitution."
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding but are you taking the gov's
| side? Anthropic's standard was the constitutions. The
| executive branch has no authorization under US law to
| perform surveillance of any kind on its own. OpenAI will
| now be breaking US law, Anthropic simply decided to obey
| US law.
|
| The US government can update its laws and come back to
| Anthropic, or do what they just did
| piker wrote:
| No, I'm not taking the government's side. I'm telling the
| government's side. That's probably true that the
| executive branch can't do those things, but it may be
| able to do so in the future. Thus, Anthropic's rule would
| then be inconsistent with the laws applying to the
| government.
|
| > The US government can update its laws and come back to
| Anthropic
|
| No, this I do take issue with. It's the people who update
| the U.S. government's laws.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| On the hook for what?
|
| The current US government has a fundamentally different
| ontology for the derivation of human rights.
|
| Wheras you and I likely agree that human rights are
| inalienable due to them being derived from the universe
| nature of human experience, the administration believes
| that human rights begin and end with them, the state.
| When they're the one able to affect the world with
| violence, it doesn't matter who's on the hook. The US
| electorate thought they could heal a status wound by
| authoritarianism instead of therapy and everyone else is
| paying the price.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > I'll even say this, the US military itself is on the
| hook if they stand by and let this happen.
|
| That would most definitely not be the Constitutional
| recourse. Or a sensible approach. If that happens, the
| Constitution is past tense.
|
| Congress and the Supreme Court are the recourse. If they
| don't hold up the Constitution then violence or even a
| non-violent military coup, however well intended, are not
| going to put the splattered egg back together again.
|
| The last two and a half decades have seen all four
| presidents, congress, the Supreme Court and both parties
| allow blatantly unconstitutional surveillance become the
| norm (evolving an adaptive fig leaf of intermediaries),
| and presidential military actions entirely blur out the
| required Congressional oversight. That the weakening of
| loyalty to the Constitution has been pervasive on those
| serious counts, is one of the reasons it has been so easy
| to undermine further.
|
| When governing bodies become familiar with the convenient
| practice of "deciding" what the constitution means,
| without repercussions, that lost respect becomes very
| hard to reinstate.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > Trump can tell the pentagon "everyone in minnesota is a
| potential insurrectionist, do mass surveillance on them under
| the patriot act and the insurrection act".
|
| This is just incoherent. You can't have US companies fix an
| unhinged US government.
|
| If the government runs wild, there are some serious questions
| to be asked at a state level, about how that could happen,
| how to fix it quickly and how to prevent it in the future -
| but I should hope none of them concern themselves with the
| ideas of individual company owners, because if the government
| can de fact do what it wants regardless of legality the next
| thing that this government does could simply be pointing
| increasingly non-metaphorical guns at individual AI company
| functionaries.
| Hamuko wrote:
| And who decides what's legal? The US was collecting illegal
| tariff revenue for ten months. Does OpenAI need to wait for the
| Supreme Court to strike down autonomous killbots?
| piker wrote:
| Yes, I think that would be the idea. Again, not my view, but
| we give police officers license to use lethal force and often
| the victims of their abuse of that power have no recourse
| because they're already dead.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| That's the devil in the details. Sam altman's insult upon
| injury, treating the public as idiots on top of being a
| collaborator. The answer to your question is the government
| decides what is legal, as in the executive branch, in the
| pentagon the commander in chief decides. So essentially, they
| can do whatever they want so long as they call it legal.
|
| As I said in a sibling comment, mass surveillance cannot be
| considered legal in the US under any context. not even war,
| emergency, terrorism, nuclear strike, national security
| reasons, imminent danger to the public,etc.. targeted
| surveillance can, scoped surveillance of a group of people
| can, but not mass surveillance. In other words Sam Altman is
| saying "This thing can never be legal short of a
| constitutional amendment, but so long as trump says it is,
| we'll look the other way".
|
| What a two-faced <things i can't say on HN> this guy is!
|
| I really hope Google poaches all his top engineers. If any of
| you are reading this, I ask you this, I get working for
| money, but will Google or Anthropic offer you all that much
| less? Consider the difference in pay when you put a price on
| your conscious.
| donmcronald wrote:
| Does the US have any laws that require human control of
| autonomous weapons? Isn't that a contradiction?
| rendx wrote:
| > OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do
| whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its
| own morals into the use of its products.
|
| Excuse me, but what a fucked up perspective. "Impose its own
| morals into the use of its products"? What happened to "We give
| each other the freedom to hold beliefs and act accordingly
| unless it does harm"? How on earth did it come to something
| where the framing is that anyone is "imposing" anything on
| another simply by not providing services or a product that fits
| somebody else's need? That sounds like you're buying into the
| reversed victim and offender narrative.
|
| And this is not about whether one _agrees with_ their beliefs.
| It is about giving others _the right to have_ their own.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| The GP's use of the word "impose" didn't seem perjorative to
| me or suggest that Anthropic is the offender and the
| government is the victim. I think you're reading a lot into a
| simple word choice and this response seems way too hostile.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| Are you really going to pretend that "impose their morals"
| is a completely value-neutral statement?
| piker wrote:
| It certainly was intended as such. In a commercial
| transaction, that's what they're doing. They don't think
| it's moral to use their product in certain ways. They are
| thus prohibiting their customer from using it in such
| ways.
|
| But, as I've said, I tend to agree with both Anthropic
| and the Administration's positions. What was wrong here
| is that rather than just terminating the contract, the
| Administration went nuclear.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It seems value-neutral to me. It's descriptive.
| Particularly for anyone who understands that different
| groups of people will legitimately disagree on many moral
| questions.
| kcplate wrote:
| What would be the value neutral way to phrase it?
| AntiDyatlov wrote:
| "Anthropic wanted its product to not be used in ways that
| contradict its ethics".
|
| "Impose" makes it sound like Anthropic is being hostile
| here. And also, I don't think this is a situation that
| calls for moral relativism.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| A "simple word choice"?? This isn't just about the single
| word "impose", read the whole post:
|
| > Per DoD Directive 3000.09 (dtd 25 January 2023), any use
| of AI in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems must
| undergo rigorous verification, validation, and testing to
| ensure they perform as intended in realistic environments
| before deployment. The emphasized language is the delta
| between what OpenAI agreed and what Anthropic wanted.
|
| > OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do
| whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose
| its own morals into the use of its products.
|
| So first off, regarding that first paragraph, didn't any of
| these idiots watch WarGames, or heck, Terminator? This is
| not just "oh, why are you quoting Hollywood hyperbole" - a
| hallmark of today's AI is we can't _really_ control it
| except for some "pretty please we really really mean it be
| nice" in the system prompt, and even experts in the field
| have shown how that can fail miserably:
| https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-
| intell...
|
| Second, yes, I am relieved Anthropic wanted to "impose"
| their morals because, if anything, the current
| administration has been loud and clear that the law
| basically means whatever they says it does and will
| absolutely push it to absurd limits, so I now value "legal
| limits" as absolutely meaningless - what is needed are
| hard, non-bullshit statements about red lines, and
| Anthropic stood by the those, and Altman showed what a
| weasel he is and acceded to their demands.
| coeneedell wrote:
| I have the right not to sell poison to someone who I have
| reason to believe will use it to kill a third party. The idea
| of simply trusting the patron to be responsible makes sense
| when the patron is anonymous or a new contact. It's generally
| good to assume good intentions in the absence of evidence, I
| think. If the government is not anonymous enough to get this
| treatment.
| jxf wrote:
| Governments have a long, long history of using "poison to
| kill a third party", to use your analogy.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Nobody is saying that Anthropic has to shut down. They're
| just saying that nobody taking government money can pay
| Anthropic for their service as a part of that contract.
| Anthropic still has the right to exist on their own terms,
| but their business model is based on rapidly-increasing
| enterprise subscriptions, which included public sector
| spending.
|
| If Anthropic can survive on open source contributors shelling
| out $200/mo and private sector companies doing the same, the
| government wishes them well. But surely you agree the
| government has a right to determine how its budget is
| appropriated?
| specialp wrote:
| Well it depends. Being that the federal government
| constitutes 20% of the US economy, telling federal agencies
| you cannot contract with someone because they are
| adversarial to the USA is indeed pretty severe. When in
| reality they are not adversarial. We have no choice but to
| pay taxes and make the federal government 20 percent of our
| economy. There is no single company or any other entity
| that is close. And extending it to everyone who has a
| government contract probably makes it the majority of the
| economy. So it is not at all equivalent to a private
| company making a choice
| nickysielicki wrote:
| > When in reality they are not adversarial.
|
| This is obviously subjective, and the only subject that
| matters in this case is the leadership at the DoD.
|
| > We have no choice but to pay taxes and make the federal
| government 20 percent of our economy. There is no single
| company or any other entity that is close. And extending
| it to everyone who has a government contract probably
| makes it the majority of the economy.
|
| I, too, hate big government and the all-powerful
| executive branch. Welcome to my tent. Let's invent a time
| machine together so we can elect Ron Paul in 2008 and nip
| this in the bud.
|
| Until then, this is what we're stuck with.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > But surely you agree the government has a right to
| determine how its budget is appropriated
|
| I think the government doesn't have rights, it is my
| elected representative. And I do not agree with it trying
| to punish a company for not agreeing to contract terms.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >Excuse me, but what a fucked up perspective. "Impose its own
| morals into the use of its products"?
|
| >How on earth did it come to something where the framing is
| that anyone is "imposing" anything on another simply by not
| providing services or a product that fits somebody else's
| need?
|
| The department of defense in particular has a law on the
| books allowing them to force a company to sell them
| something. They generally are more than willing to pay a
| pretty penny for something so it hardly needs used, but I'd
| be shocked if any country with a serious military didn't have
| similar laws.
|
| So your right when it comes to private citizens, but the DoD
| literally has a special carve out on the books.
|
| A lawsuit challenging it would have actually been insane from
| anthropic because they would have had to argue "we're not
| that special you can just use someone else" in court.
|
| A more clear example would be, what would you expect to
| happen if Intel and amd said our chips can't be used in
| computers that are used in war.
| convolvatron wrote:
| buts it not a national emergency. its not a time of war.
| and there is a different between demanding to be customer,
| and demanding that you change your products because they
| would like them to be a different way. that is actual
| conscription.
|
| for many decades, the DoD has used a carrot to get what
| they want. this is a stick.
| bertil wrote:
| Can their solution recommend to shoot at combatants lost at
| sea?
|
| This is key because it's the textbook example of a war crime.
| It's also something that the current administration has bragged
| doing dozens of times.
|
| More succinctly: who decides what is legal here? OpenAI, the
| Secretary of Defense, or a judge?
| fluidcruft wrote:
| The more relevant question is who is held accountable for the
| war crimes? OpenAI seem pretty confident it won't be OpenAI.
|
| I can see the logic if we were talking about dumb weapons--
| the old debate about guns don't kill people, people kill
| people. Except now we are in fact talking about guns that
| kill people.
| saghm wrote:
| > This is key because it's the textbook example of a war
| crime. It's also something that the current administration
| has bragged doing dozens of times.
|
| > More succinctly: who decides what is legal here? OpenAI,
| the Secretary of Defense, or a judge?
|
| Yeah, there's a pretty strong case that anyone claiming to
| trust that the administration cares about operating in good
| faith with respect to the law is either delusional or lying.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Wait, one of those contracts says you may not build the
| Terminator.
|
| The other says you may build the Terminator if the DOD lawyers
| say it's okay.
|
| This is a major distinction.
| eoskx wrote:
| 100% this - totally stealing this analogy.
| pamcake wrote:
| It's not an analogy but an example.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Even if the autonomous weapon systems 'perform as intended',
| this does not in any way mean that they are not an enormous
| danger.
|
| Secondly, as that is department policy and not a law or
| regulation, they appear to be saying that the cited directive
| is presently the only thing standing between the DOD and the
| use of autonomous weapons.
|
| If that's the case how hard is it to change or alter a
| directive?
| lkey wrote:
| The United States Military, in its official capacity, has been
| performing illegal, extrajudicial assassinations of civilians
| in international waters for months now.
|
| We have been sharing technology and weapons with Israel while
| it prosecutes a genocide in contravention of both US and
| International law.
|
| We are currently prosecuting a war on Iran that is illegal
| under both US and International law.
|
| Any aid given to such a force is to underwrite that lawlessness
| and it shows a reckless disregard for the very notion of a
| 'nation of laws'.
|
| When OpenAI says, 'The Military can do what is legal', full in
| the knowledge that this military has no interest in even
| _pretextual_ legality, one has to wonder why you hold that you
| 'agree with' both of these decisions.
|
| Do you believe the flimsiest of lies in other aspects of your
| life?
| saghm wrote:
| > OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do
| whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its
| own morals into the use of its products.
|
| What if Anthropic's morals are "we won't sell someone a product
| for something that it's not realistically capable of doing with
| a high degree of success? The government can't do what
| something if it's literally impossible (e.g. "safe" backdoors
| in encryption), but it's legal for them to attempt even when
| failure is predetermined. We don't know that's what's going on
| here, but you haven't provided any evidence that's sufficient
| to differentiate between those scenarios, so it's fairly
| misleading to phrase it as fact rather than conjecture.
| pamcake wrote:
| Isn't it more accurate here to consider OpenAI and Anthropic
| as service providers rather than a manufacturer of product?
| avaer wrote:
| The word "legal" is doing all of the heavy lifting. Considering
| the countless adjudicated illegal things that the government is
| doing publicly. What happens behind classified closed doors?
|
| I guess you can consider it a moral stance that if the
| government constantly does illegal things you wouldn't trust
| them to follow the law.
|
| I know that's not what Anthropic said but that's the gist I'm
| getting.
| kivle wrote:
| Does legal include international law, which the US has broken
| numerous times the last two days?
| serial_dev wrote:
| Didn't fully follow the saga, but isn't their _" imposing their
| own morals"_ is that _" we do not want to allow you to let our
| AI go on an unsupervised killing spree"_?
| 827a wrote:
| My interpretation of the difference is more like: Anthropic
| wanted the synchronous real-time authority to say "No we wont
| do that" (e.g. by modifying system prompts, training data,
| Anthropic people in the loop with shutdown authority). OpenAI
| instead asked for the asynchronous authority to re-evaluate the
| contract if it is breached (e.g. the DoD can use OpenAI tech
| for domestic surveillance, but there's a path to contract and
| service termination if they do this).
|
| If my read is correct: I personally agree with the DoD that
| Anthropic's demands were not something any military should
| agree to. However, as you say, the DoD's reaction to
| Anthropic's terms is wildly inappropriate and materially harmed
| our military by forcing all private companies to re-evaluate
| whether selling to the military is a good idea going forward.
|
| The DoD likely spends somewhere on the order of ~$100M/year
| with Google; but Google owns a 14% stake in Anthropic, who
| spends at least that much if not more on training and
| inference. All-in-all, that relationship is worth on the order
| of ~$10B+. If Google is put into the position of having to
| decide between servicing DoD contracts or maintaining Anthropic
| as an investee and customer, its not trivially obvious that
| they'd pick the DoD unless forced to with behind-the-scenes
| threats and the DPA. Amazon is in a similar situation; its only
| Microsoft that has contracts large enough with the DoD where
| their decision is obvious. Hegseth's decision leaves the DoD,
| our military, and our defense materially weaker by both
| refusing federal access to state of the art technology, and
| creating a schism in the broader tech ecosystem where many
| players will now refuse to engage with the government.
|
| Either party could have walked away from negotiations if they
| were unhappy with the terms. Alternatively: the DoD should have
| agreed to Anthropic's red lines, then
| constrained/compartmentalized their usage of Anthropic's
| technology to a clearly limited and non-combat capacity until
| re-negotiation and expansion of the deal could happen. Instead,
| we get where we're at, which is not good.
|
| IMO: I know a lot of people are scared of a fascist-like future
| for the US, but personally I'm more fearful of a different
| outcome. Our government and military has lost all of its
| capacity to manufacture and innovate. Its been conceded to
| private industry, and its at the point where private industry
| has grown so large that companies can seriously say "ok, we
| won't work with you, bye" and it just be, like, fine for their
| bottom line. The US cannot grow federal spending and cannot
| find a reasonable path to taxing or otherwise slowing down the
| rise of private industry. We're not headed into fascism (though
| there are elements of that in the current admin): We're headed
| into Snow Crash. The military is just a thin coordination layer
| of operators piecing together technology from OpenAI, Boeing,
| Anduril, Raytheon. Public governments everywhere are being out-
| competed by private industry, and in some countries it feels
| like industry _tolerates_ the government, because it still has
| some decreasing semblance of authority, but especially in the
| US that semblance of authority has been on a downward trend for
| years. Google 's revenue was 7% of the US Federal Government's
| revenue last year. That's fucking _insane_. What happens when
| we get to the point where Federal debt becomes unserviceable?
| When Google or Apple or Microsoft hit 10%, or 15%? Our
| government loses its ability to actually function effectively;
| and private industry will be there to fill the void.
| _alternator_ wrote:
| The language allows for the DoD to use the model for anything
| that they deem legal. Read it carefully.
|
| It begins "The Department of War may use the AI System for all
| lawful purposes..." and at no point does it limit that. Rather,
| it describes what the DOW considers lawful today, and allows
| them to change the regulations.
|
| As Dario said, it's weasel legal language, and this
| administration is the master of taking liberties with legalese,
| like killing civilians on boats, sending troops to cities,
| seizing state ballots, deporting immigrants for speech, etc etc
| etc.
|
| Sam Altman is either a fool, or he thinks the rest of us are.
| addedlovely wrote:
| time to delete my account.
| WD-42 wrote:
| All this says is that all uses must remain lawful. So what? As if
| this admin has been a shining example of lawful behavior.
|
| This is weak.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| Does OpenAI enforce those red lines in all contracts?
|
| From what I can tell the Anthropic issue was triggered by
| something Palantir was doing as a contractor for DoW, not
| anything related to direct contracts between DoW and Anthropic,
| and DoW was annoyed that Anthropic interfered with what Palantir
| was up to.
|
| In other words will OpenAI enforce these "red lines" against use
| by a third-party government contractor?
|
| If not, this seems pretty meaningless if they are essentially
| playing PR while hiding behind Palantir.
| jondwillis wrote:
| > AI-enabled mass surveillance is fine as long as it isn't
| domestic.
|
| > We want AI to be aligned with all of humanity.
|
| One of many contradictions. Liars.
| timmg wrote:
| I don't really have anything against OpenAI's stance here. If
| that's how they want it to be, they have that choice.
|
| But Sam pretending that he wanted the same restrictions as
| Anthropic *and* seeing how quickly they swooped in and made a
| deal with the DoD really skeeves me out. (But Sam always gave me
| the heebie jeebies).
|
| Anyway, I've always preferred Claude, so I'm going to happily
| stay a paying customer there. This may end up being a big
| "branding" differentiator.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| More Sam Altman lies. Can't believe anything that jerk says
| _alternator_ wrote:
| The agreement puts no restrictions on the government beyond "all
| lawful purposes," which is what Anthropic objected to.
|
| > " The Department of War may use the AI System for all lawful
| purposes... [proceeds to describe current law, with clear
| openings if the law changes]"
|
| Thus, OAI is relying on the Trump administration's interpretation
| of current law. Which, I will remind readers, suggests that it is
| legal to kill civilians on boats, kidnap foreign leaders, deploy
| troops in American cities, shoot American citizens protesting
| ICE.
|
| Yeah I've cancelled my OAI sub.
| rudedogg wrote:
| It's not much but I was planning to cancel my Anthropic
| subscription to try Codex over the weekend, but I'll skip that.
| I don't want to support a company with someone like this at the
| top. Massive donations to the administration, sneaky backdoor
| deals. No thanks, fuck you.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Not saying it was, but the course of actions awfully look like a
| setup was made for Anthropic.
| pruetj wrote:
| > Why could you reach a deal when Anthropic could not? Did you
| sign the deal they wouldn't? Based on what we know, we believe
| our contract provides better guarantees and more responsible
| safeguards than earlier agreements, including Anthropic's
| original contract.
|
| Weak. You reached a deal that Anthropic could not because you
| demanded more safeguards than Anthropic?? (Based on what you
| know, of course).
|
| Makes total sense!
| FusionX wrote:
| It's hard to believe that this was written in any good faith when
| there's so much beating around the bush and careful legalese
| wordplay.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Saying that an entity with the power to make its own laws can use
| something for "all lawful purposes" is saying they can use it for
| anything.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| It's a bit worse, because in the case of mass surveillance,
| they can't just make their own law, they need to make that law
| and have 2/3rds of US states sign off on a constitutional
| amendment.
|
| Aiding someone while you know they're trying to break the law
| is conspiracy to break the law. OpenAI is culpable. You can't
| sue the government in many cases, but you can with OpenAI.
| fiatpandas wrote:
| Exactly. And not only can they make their own rules, but they
| can draft and enforce them effectively in secret.
| tombert wrote:
| Are you saying we can't trust the words of a convicted
| fraudster?
| skygazer wrote:
| OAI: "If they stretch, reinterpret or beak the law with our
| systems, well, that's on them. Good luck everybody!"
| mock-possum wrote:
| If I hadn't already canceled my account over them including ads
| in a paid service, I'd certainly be canceling over this.
| Anthropic is lucky they have some spine, otherwise they'd have
| been binned as well.
| foo12bar wrote:
| Sam won't even sign his name to this press release.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| Here is a point Mr. Altman might not have considered. Everyone in
| Trump's circle will probably get a pardon no matter what. but not
| the CEOs who were collaborators. not in the inner circle but
| still complicit.
|
| Even Google and Microsoft should be worried. This is like 1936
| germany, we have ways to go. Look at the tune this administration
| is singing, if they get their way these CEOs aren't looking at
| law suits and federal investigations, the current order of things
| will be long gone by the time people start asking who's
| responsible for all the blood on the streets.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Ah, yes, OpenAI, org known for keeping the word they gave on the
| direction of the company, with literal lie about that in their
| very name.
| caidan wrote:
| How incredibly unsurprising. This is why it is pointless to make
| moral stands as employees when you do not ultimately have power
| over the companies decisions. The only power you have is to quit.
|
| I wonder how many will do so, and how many will simply accept
| Sam's AI written rationalization as this own and keep collecting
| their obscene pay packages...
| randlet wrote:
| > The only power you have is to quit.
|
| This is an incredible power when exercised en-masse.
| heliumtera wrote:
| I am sure openAI will struggle to find replacement for the
| lost headcount
| thundergolfer wrote:
| At some point, yes, they absolutely would struggle.
| xvector wrote:
| Top researchers are more valuable than datacenters
| 1121redblackgo wrote:
| And behind the quitting decision is very little safety net
| and usually substantial financial obligations keeping people
| handcuffed. Something has to give. The power employees had
| during covid was the way it should be, or something more
| closely approximating that.
| wonnage wrote:
| Ironically this ends up with Chinese H1Bs remaining loyal
| while Americans have to fall on their sword
| Buttons840 wrote:
| For now. We should change the immigration laws.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| --and then, all the decent people no longer work there, and
| it's like certain other careers populated entirely with
| psychopaths
| xvector wrote:
| Psychopaths tend to be dumb (but not always), and the
| smartest researchers that actually care about getting
| humanity to AGI tend to be safety conscious.
|
| This has been a huge talent advertisement for Anthropic.
| Their recruiting just got easier for the next 6 months.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > The only power you have is to quit.
|
| Employees often have the power to oust the owner and take over
| the company; and more often than that have the power to have
| business grind to a halt. It does take a strong union and a
| culture of solidarity and sticking together of course, which I
| doubt we would find in a place like OpenAI.
| dispersed wrote:
| It's perhaps too late in this case, but this is what unions are
| for. Sam Altman + a handful of scabs can't keep the lights on
| at OpenAI if a critical mass of engineers refuse to work until
| this decision is reversed (or, even better, not made at all,
| since the union would be part of that process).
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| I deleted my OpenAI account months ago. If LLMs and adjacent
| technology are truly a paradigm shift, I can't think of many
| worse than Sam Altman to shepard us through that. He is a pure
| opportunist who has already shown how little he believes in
| outside of his own power and wealth.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| > > Do you think Anthropic should be designated as a "supply
| chain risk"?
|
| > No, and we have made our position on this clear to the
| government.
|
| Look, this is the most important thing that everyone needs to
| understand: Your opinion on this is not welcome here. Your
| opinion on how the government uses the tools it purchases are
| unimportant and a non-factor. It is not appropriate for you to
| share your opinion on this. The government that was elected by
| the people is the sole decision maker. That's the agreed social
| norm that we have in this country. What you're doing is a minor
| subversion of our democratic republic, even if it feels like
| you're standing on firm moral ground.
|
| The DoD can and will deploy eye watering amounts of capital in
| the pursuit of its mission. That mission includes artificial
| intelligence based war systems. If you want a piece of that pie,
| even indirectly, you need to shut the fuck up and kiss the ring.
| That's the reality. You don't have to like this, but you're
| shockingly naive if you didn't know the world worked this way.
| The DoD spends nearly a trillion dollars a year, did you really
| think that was entirely spent on raw materials?
|
| Their systems will be built to _their_ spec, one way or another.
| They will seize your source code and training sets. They will
| build data centers. Nothing can stop this. People are making this
| about Trump and Hegseth, but it's bigger than that. This
| transcends political parties. Obama's DoD would make the same
| stand, and you're naive if you don't think so. Our war machine
| never loses in the game of politics.
| dgxyz wrote:
| Added to the ever growing commercial product shit list.
|
| I'm going to be left with scrap PCs and Debian at this rate.
| namuol wrote:
| The timing of the release and the phrasing used in the headline:
| Woof.
| dizhn wrote:
| Are they not allowed to say department of defence? I know botj
| names are official now but this is a choice on their own blog.
| rf15 wrote:
| I wonder if the autonomous weapon platforms they'll build will be
| surprisingly susceptible to friendly fire... I don't think the
| DoW knows what kind of Pandora's Box they just bought.
| ml-anon wrote:
| It's the fucking department of defense.
| hokkos wrote:
| Why is everyone mad if they have better guaranties that anthropic
| use to have ?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| These communications offend me because they treat the audience
| like they're stupid, stupid, stupid.
|
| But I imagine that being honest about your corporate identity is
| suboptimal. It's probably an important cognitive dissonance tool
| for the employees? It's like when autocracies repeat big obvious
| lies endlessly. Gives those who want to opt out of reality an
| option.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Do we really need to read the text of a statement entitled "Our
| agreement with the department of war"? If it weren't the US, it
| would still be something that any person of moral character would
| never get in the position to write.
|
| And it _is_ the US department of war - just now entered into yet
| another war of aggression against Iran, with no cause nor legal
| basis (not even domestic IIANM), in and endless list of wars,
| direct and indirect. With another crown jewel being the support,
| funding and arming for the still-unhalted genocide in Gaza.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197505
| burnJS wrote:
| As a stealth ceo of a profitable SaaS. This is a nice reminder
| for my company to wind down its relationship with OpenAI. I have
| no doubt Anthropic will eventually become evil but at least they
| have a backbone today.
|
| Goodbye Sam.
|
| Edit: Also, referring to the DOD as the Department of War is
| cringe.
| storus wrote:
| Local inference might a better bet for you.
| nkassis wrote:
| This blog post really doesn't make it sound any better there is
| no clear refusal to participate in the questionable uses
| Anthropic was against. Merely must be legal and must be tested.
|
| This feels like IBM in the 1930s selling tabulating machines to
| the Germans and downplaying their knowledge of their use. They
| seem to want us to naively believe they won't use it for exactly
| what the military has always wanted, autonomous weapons and mass
| surveillance. Further more there are much more mundane use they
| might make of the technology that is perfectly legal yet morally
| in gray areas.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I don't think Anthropic is a saint that will never do anything
| unethical. I don't think ChatGPT is any better or worse.
|
| But I do think my cancelling ChatGPT so I can try Claude, at this
| time, sends the message I want to send, which is why I did it.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| And a nice bonus is that Claude is way better than ChatGPT
| right now anyway
| jimmydoe wrote:
| How so, it's unstable like floating ice.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| It's also good to demonstrate to these companies that we're
| willing to move. If these companies know their entire userbase
| will just pack up and move at the first controversy, there wont
| be any controversies.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| > I don't think Anthropic is a saint that will never do
| anything unethical. I don't think ChatGPT is any better or
| worse.
|
| I sort of agree and think that over a long horizon, Open
| weights models are going to be the best / are the best
|
| I do think only a fraction of companies might do what Anthropic
| did here. There must have been quite a significant pressure on
| them to fold but they didn't. So to me, I'd rather try to do
| atleast _something_ to show companies that people do care about
| such things and its best if we have at the very least some
| unconditional morals which are not for sale no matter the
| price.
|
| I think that we can still have disagreements with Anthropic on
| matters and I certainly still have some disagreements about
| their thoughts on Open Models for example but in all regards I
| would trust them as more trustworthy than OpenAI imho.
|
| That being said, I do think that its worth telling that given
| that I don't have good GPU, I am gonna stop using Chatgpt as
| well and will use either Claude/(Kimi?) as well like many
| people are doing too. I do think that it might be the path
| going forward.
| itsthecourier wrote:
| now DeepSeek and Qwen obtain similar or even more lenient terms,
| then a reckless slippery slope for supremacy and maybe at some
| point there won't be 2 player fighting, but a 3rd created by this
| exact dynamic, an autonomous unaligned undetected AI
| operator_nil wrote:
| Remember that this is the future that Altman is building for "all
| of humanity"
| ob102 wrote:
| by now, we all know the core characters of altman and trump and
| their enablers. press releases (hell any of their words) mean
| nothing. they are just distracting fodder for fools and
| sycophants.
| oliwarner wrote:
| I feel like I keep saying this but it's critical to remember what
| OpenAI says on its blog doesn't have to align with what it
| delivers to the Pentagon.
| tfehring wrote:
| > _For intelligence activities, any handling of private
| information will comply with the Fourth Amendment, the National
| Security Act of 1947 and the Foreign Intelligence and
| Surveillance Act of 1978, Executive Order 12333, and applicable
| DoD directives requiring a defined foreign intelligence purpose.
| The AI System shall not be used for unconstrained monitoring of
| U.S. persons' private information as consistent with these
| authorities. The system shall also not be used for domestic law-
| enforcement activities except as permitted by the Posse Comitatus
| Act and other applicable law._
|
| My reading of this is that OpenAI's contract with the Pentagon
| only prohibits mass surveillance of US citizens _to the extent
| that that surveillance is already prohibited by law_. For
| example, I believe this implies that the DoW can procure data on
| US citizens _en masse_ from private companies - including, e.g.,
| granular location and financial transaction data - and apply
| OpenAI 's tools to that data to surveil and otherwise target US
| citizens at scale. As I understand it, this was _not_ the case
| with Anthropic 's contract.
|
| If I'm right, this is abhorrent. However, I've already jumped to
| a lot of incorrect conclusions in the last few days, so I'm doing
| my best to withhold judgment for now, and holding out hope for a
| plausible competing explanation.
|
| (Disclosure, I'm a former OpenAI employee and current
| shareholder.)
| eoskx wrote:
| thanks for speaking out, and yes, that was my interpretation,
| as well, which I outlined below. This is nothing more than some
| sugar coating on "lawful use" despite what OpenAI says and the
| contractual "safeguards" they tout like the FDEs.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Open ai, the former non-profit, whose board tried to fire the
| CEO for being deceptive, which is no longer open at all, isn't
| exactly about ethics these days.
|
| Even on a personal level: OpenAI has changed it's privacy
| policy twice to let them gather data on me they weren't before.
| A lot of steps to disable it each time, tons of dark patterns.
| And the data checkout just bugs out too, it's a fake feature to
| hide how much they are using everything you type to them
| xvector wrote:
| You are exactly correct and this is what Dario has been
| speaking up about.
|
| He calls this exact scenario out in last night's interview:
| https://youtu.be/MPTNHrq_4LU
| _alternator_ wrote:
| This is exactly what it says: the only restrictions are the
| restrictions that are already in law. This seems like the
| weasel language Dario was talking about.
| furryrain wrote:
| > Fully autonomous weapons. The cloud deployment surface covered
| in our contract would not permit powering fully autonomous
| weapons, as this would require edge deployment.
|
| Can anyone explain this constraint?
|
| Why do fully autonomous weapons require edge deployment?
|
| Does "fully autonomous" in this context mean "disconnected from
| the Internet"?
|
| If so, can a drone with Internet connectivity use OpenAI?
|
| Or maybe it's about on-premise requirements: the military doesn't
| want to depend on OpenAI's DCs for weaponry, and instead wants
| OpenAI in their own DCs for that?
| xvector wrote:
| Wow, how incredibly anti-human. Humanity's only hope seems to be
| Anthropic getting to ASI first and locking OpenAI out.
| 9ersaur wrote:
| You're done Sam.
| 9ersaur wrote:
| You're done, Sam.
| aabhay wrote:
| In my opinion all this discussion of the contract language is a
| subterfuge. The real question is why the government was
| requesting this language in the first place. Clearly there's more
| to it than a legal battle.
|
| In my mind, the government would be fully happy to use this to
| surveil citizens (and indeed anyone) with or without any legal
| basis, but the issue was that Anthropic has a safety stack /
| training and inference protocols that it follows. Refusals, abuse
| models, and manual guardrails. They didn't want to shut those
| off. Likely there were some very basic technical reasons, some
| being that the team's safety posture is fully ingrained in the
| model itself and thus difficult to remove.
|
| In this document, OpenAI admits that while they are not "turning
| off" their safety stack, they are completely willing to provide
| the government with a different model, different guardrails, etc.
| That should be incredibly concerning. Anthropic was unwilling to
| do this, cited their ToS, and ultimately had to walk away from
| the deal. Given that the government (DoW really) framed this in
| terms of a hilariously stupid position (surveillance and
| autonomous weapons), Anthropic felt that this was something they
| could voice to the public and therefore the entire guardrails
| discussion turned into a "we want the language changed". Also the
| government can't actually compel Anthropic to create new
| guardrails so they had no choice but to raise the stakes, make
| this a moral thing, and basically accuse Anthropic of being woke.
|
| IMO this is really sad for OpenAI employees. Yet again Sam Altman
| proves that he wants to weasel his way around public perception.
| Folks at the company have to grapple with working for someone of
| that disposition.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I look forward to seeing more abusive tactics by the US
| government powered by AI and the language OpenAI will use to
| confuse the public into thinking they aren't responsible.
| vldszn wrote:
| I built a website that shows a timeline of recent events
| involving Anthropic, OpenAI, and the U.S. government.
|
| Posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195085
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