[HN Gopher] I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now
___________________________________________________________________
I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now
Author : emschwartz
Score : 107 points
Date : 2026-03-11 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dwarkesh.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dwarkesh.com)
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| I like Dwarkesh's style better than Lex Fridman, because unlike
| Fridman he's not a propagandist for Russia and doesn't have that
| "love" bullshit vibe.
|
| But on the substance they're equally vapid. Dwarkesh's interview
| with Richard Sutton was especially cringe.
| armitron wrote:
| Dwarkesh is your run-of-the-mill vapid influencer idiot.
| Fridman on the other hand, when in the presence of greatness,
| knows to STFU and listen.
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| "The presence of greatness" - ugh.
| throwa356262 wrote:
| I have been told the Fridmans association with MIT is mostly
| a lie.
|
| Not sure if this is true, maybe someone who went to MIT
| around the same time can shed some light on this?
| kleebeesh wrote:
| I'm a random dude on the Internet, but my partner completed
| her PhD at MIT. While there I knew and knew of a few PhD
| grads who worked at MIT in some non-tenure-track role
| (postdoc, staff researcher, etc). Typically for a couple
| years and then they get a better-paying or more permanent
| job. But several remained "affiliated" in some way. They
| kept their MIT website/email, some in academia continued to
| collaborate to some extent. Things like that. But AFAIK
| they weren't getting a paycheck from MIT. And it's
| somewhere between neat and genuinely professionally
| valuable to be affiliated w/ a prestigious university, so I
| don't blame them for claiming affiliation. My best guess is
| he's "affiliated" in a similar way.
| ademeure wrote:
| There's definitely something to be said for giving
| interesting people a platform to express their views
| unconditionally. Unfortunately, that can also be a very
| dangerous thing. I have been less and less impressed over the
| years with Lex's approach here.
|
| I'm personally very glad that Dwarkesh isn't like that. He's
| not perfect, but I think he's doing a way better job than
| other podcasters in the field right now.
| lovich wrote:
| His Zelensky interview suggests otherwise
| ed_balls wrote:
| It's interesting that's the only interview when he
| challenged someone.
| scoopdewoop wrote:
| Dwarkesh was ready to whitewash Elon the day after his Epstein
| emails came out. None of them should be taken seriously.
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| Link please!
| scoopdewoop wrote:
| The day after the emails came out he posted a video where
| they had beers while Elon LARPed as a human
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| Link please!
| naves wrote:
| Elon Musk - "In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI
| will be space":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXbuik3dgA
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| Thanks for the link because I can't stomach 3 hours of
| this.
|
| First phrase: "you're saving on energy by putting data
| centers in space". What?
|
| 2:08 "It's harder to scale on the ground than it is in
| space" what?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The argument is permitting and weather proofing are
| harder than lifting at certain values of scale for each.
| We're not there right now. But if Starship pans out we're
| at least damn close, particularly if solar-panel
| fabrication can be done from out-of-well silicates.
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| You don't buy any of this right?
|
| Didnt startship exploded like 10 times by now? But in 30
| months they'll be launchign 1 per hour? What?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _You don 't buy any of this right?_
|
| I actually do. The math is more strained than anything
| present. But a _lot_ of people are rejecting it out of
| hand without doing anything back of the envelope. Truth
| is, barring a seismic shift in how we permit data centers
| on the ground, it takes a within-the-envelope decreases
| in launch costs to make space-based data centers
| profitable. Which is then just a cheat code for building
| a Dyson sphere.
|
| > _Didnt startship exploded like 10 times by now?_
|
| They all explode all the time. Starship has also been
| consistently improving its suborbital flight
| characteristics. I don't see a good argument for a
| fundamental design fuckup in the data we have.
|
| > _But in 30 months they 'll be launchign 1 per hour?_
|
| This is nonsense. But within ten years? I think so. At
| least, we don't have a good reason to reject that with
| current data. And that _would_ make the cost equation
| flip to favoring space-based infrastructure. Which,
| honestly, is not the answer I expected. (I've done
| aerospace stuff for a while. Most of the back-of-the-
| envelope math fails. It failed for space-based solar
| power. It failed for asteroid mining. And it currently
| fails for space-based data centers. But let launch costs
| dip a bit, or permitting delays and risks rise a bit, and
| the equation balances sooner than one would think.)
| newyankee wrote:
| More than that the questions about space based solar vs land
| solar for data center calculations seemed hollow as they are
| easily verifiable. He let Elon get away with this admin does
| not like Solar as an answer instead of what he is doing to
| convince them otherwise
| ed_balls wrote:
| Dwarkesh is even more astroturfed than Lex Fridman. The
| interviews they do are just ads. No challenges, no hard
| questions. All seem staged and prepared.
| Imnimo wrote:
| >What we're learning from this episode is that the government
| actually has way more leverage over private companies than we
| realized.
|
| Who is learning this for the first time only now? Even just
| restricting ourselves to the current administration, look at how
| many times Trump has directed punitive actions against private
| entities! Look at his actions against law firms like Perkins Coie
| or Covington & Burling. This is not something that just arose out
| of nowhere with Anthropic.
| guessmyname wrote:
| > _Who is learning this for the first time only now?_
|
| A teenager, probably. Not everyone is 100 years old.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| > But within 20 years, 99% of the workforce in the military, the
| government, and the private sector will be AIs.
|
| I haven't seen this much hype and hopium since the dot com boom.
| The whole open AI -> Anthropic saga just reeks of the same
| evolution of Viant/Scient.
|
| Look we have an amazing tool, but it has some fundamental
| shortcomings that the industry seems to want to burry its head in
| the sand about. The moment the hype dies and we get to
| engineering and practical implementations a lot is going to
| change. Does it have the potential to displace a lot of our
| current industry: why yes it does. Agents can force the web open
| (have you ever tried to get all your amazon purchase history?)
| can kill dark patterns (go cancel this service for me), and crush
| wedge services (how many things are shimmed into sales force that
| should really be stand alone apps). And the valuable engagement
| is going to be by PEOPLE, good UI, good user experiences are
| gonna be what sells (this will hit internet advertising hard for
| the middle men like google and Facebook).
| ekidd wrote:
| > _I haven 't seen this much hype and hopium since the dot com
| boom._
|
| The notion that 99% of the workforce and military will be AIs
| isn't "copium", it's grounds for absolute terror. One of two
| things will be true:
|
| 1. The AIs will be controlled by the Epstein class, who will
| then have no use for most of humanity, either as workers or
| soldiers.
|
| 2. Or the AIs will be controlled by the AIs themselves, which
| also seems worrisome.
|
| Really, any situation where 99% of the workforce and military
| are AIs should be deeply concerning, for reasons that should be
| obvious to any student of history or evolution.
|
| And, sure, maybe we won't get there in our lifetimes. But if we
| did, I wouldn't expect an automatic utopia.
| fn-mote wrote:
| The GP does not believe that AI is going to end up running
| 99% of everything. Ever.
|
| The GP is saying that it's a major over-extrapolation of the
| current progress.
|
| You seem to be assuming we will get there instead of
| expecting the cracks will become more and more obvious.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| I think a lot of Dwarkesh's mentality about AI being inevitable
| / ubiquitous comes from the same part of him that thinks that
| artificial things are "good enough", e.g. the way he allows his
| production team to use fake plastic plants on set. Is he
| correct? I'm not sure, but I know there are at least a few
| people who notice the difference.
| ashdksnndck wrote:
| I always listened to the podcast and forget they even have
| videos. Have a hard time imagining myself sitting and
| watching a 2 hour interview when I could listen while
| exercising or doing chores. Am I missing anything?
| epgui wrote:
| I really hate how people think LLMs == AI. An LLM can't/shouldn't
| be doing anything other than generating text.
| guessmyname wrote:
| I'm also as pedantic as you and use "LLM" even talking about
| these systems but you need to be flexible and accept that "AI"
| is already in everyone's head when referring to GPT variants.
| rishabhaiover wrote:
| How is this related to the current discussion at hand?
| varenc wrote:
| LLMs are AI. Markov text generators from the 1970s/80s are AI.
| Face recognition software like FaceID is AI. Many people behind
| LLMs got degrees under departments that have AI in their title.
|
| AI is just computers doing things we typically associate with
| human intelligence, and having a conversation with a computer
| that effectively passes the Turing test, is definitely AI. If
| LLMs aren't AI, then AI isn't a useful term. (though agreed
| that LLMs aren't AGI, which I assume is what you're thinking
| of)
|
| Wikipedia's list of AI applications:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Applic...
| api wrote:
| This is called the AI effect: we stop calling it AI when it
| works. Its goal post moving to keep the sci-fi term sci-fi.
|
| There's a similar thing with transhumanist "enhancement" or
| "life extension" stuff. When it actually works we call it
| medicine. Statistically one of the most powerful life
| extension techs ever developed was the cardiac bypass, which
| would have been sci-fi in 1900.
|
| I've been using stuff like Claude Code and personally feel
| comfortable calling this stuff AI. Is it AGI? I don't think
| so, but then again I'm not totally sure what that is. Am I
| AGI? I'm not universally able to handle all forms of
| cognition well and I can't self modify much, so I'm not sure
| either. I'm not even sure if AGI is a well formed concept.
|
| Intelligence is a pretty broad concept too. My pet rabbit is
| intelligent. Plants are intelligent. Bacteria are
| intelligent. Anything that can run an OODA loop, learn,
| adapt, and move toward a goal function is intelligent. By
| that definition some computer systems have been AI for
| decades. They're just getting better.
|
| I think there's intelligence all around us. We just don't get
| the wow factor from it unless it talks.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Military orders are text.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I think that when some people talk about "AI" they have "AGI"
| in mind, and when others talk about "AI" they have "latest
| computer does the smarts" in mind.
|
| I personally would prefer "AI" to be "AGI" but there's no point
| fighting the way people use language (see: every damned
| pedantic comment about English usage ever!! :-)
| Trasmatta wrote:
| This is pedantic. AI has many definitions. There was "AI"
| powering enemies in 80s and 90s video games
| alecco wrote:
| But the "Anthropic fight" is mostly fake. Palantir was using
| Claude as base model. Anthropic _allegedly_ took issue with
| unsupervised kills because the technology wasn 't ready (or
| something along the lines).
|
| Also, I remember reading this guy has close ties to Anthropic.
| Also, I find it suspicious how he came to prominence out of
| nowhere. Like Big Tech and the establishment are propping
| podcasts of controlled narrative/opposition. I don't buy any of
| it.
| Readerium wrote:
| Yes he is room-mates with.
| cushychicken wrote:
| Love the interviews Dwarkesh sponsored with Sarah Paine from
| the Naval War College.
|
| Also, somewhat spitefully, find it funny that he has multiple
| roommates.
| alecco wrote:
| Those ones were a bit on the nose, no?
| _diyar wrote:
| How so? I enjoyed them, keeping in mind that the lecturer
| was a professor at a US naval war college.
| alecco wrote:
| _Would you like to know MORE?_
| brandall10 wrote:
| I'm assuming he's in some sort of high-end communal
| housing, a trend that began emerging in SF ~15 years back
| ... ie. where multi-millionaire startup founders and the
| like choose it on purpose for the synergistic benefits.
| rustyhancock wrote:
| Also Anthropic has made very clear they align closely with the
| DoW.
|
| Really Anthropic doesn't seem to be fighting for anyone but a
| narrow subset of people.
|
| So who cares, none of the but AI providers are particularly
| ethical. Pick your poison as your conscious and needs allow.
| mips_avatar wrote:
| He's roommates with an Anthropic researcher, I was roommates
| with a Google product manager I don't think I'm really bought
| out by Google.
| observationist wrote:
| It doesn't matter what you know so much as who you know.
| Networking is the most precious currency. He met the right
| people, got the right guests, and surfed a wave of fortunate
| occurrences. He was roommates with Dylan Patel of
| TheIjnformation, and John Y of Asionometry, and has since
| developed a wide range of high level industry contacts.
|
| Sometimes people succeed without earning it, and what matters
| is what they do with the success afterwards. I'd say Dwarkesh
| earned it, but got lucky and caught the right waves, and has
| surfed the hell out of his success. He's had consistently well
| informed, level headed takes, and has engaged the field with
| insight and honest curiousity.
|
| When I see people surf like that, I applaud it. There's nothing
| grifty or shady, he's just had a great series of excellent
| opportunities and has played them for everything they're worth.
| Once he had a few billionaires on, that was all the social
| cache he needed to continue attracting guests and high level
| researchers and other figures in AI.
| alecco wrote:
| I might be old, but he strikes me as a shallow valley Bro.
| His CV has nothing of significance. But he had _a lot_ of Big
| Tech guests and even that Navy intelligence woman. He got a
| boost by being endorsed by Bezos. It smells of BS to me.
| Again, maybe I 'm just a grumpy greybeard and this is a Gen Z
| thing.
| observationist wrote:
| I'm also a grumpy greybeard - but I've got nothing but
| respect for him grinding out some good podcasts and then
| being in the right place and right time to capitalize on
| connections. I see a lot of skepticism directed his way,
| but I view it as a lot like early dotcom winners. Catch the
| right wave and it's like winning the lottery, success far
| beyond what you'd normally be able to reach, and then you
| get the opportunity to show whether you can keep it or not.
| I appreciate a good success story, and it's awesome to see
| people win by catching a wave, and then hold on to it,
| showing that they can keep doing it at a higher level.
| cuuupid wrote:
| It's entirely fake, sure Palantir uses Claude, but it takes
| about 10 minutes to pull all their federal contracts and
| realize the little involvement they have in the kill chain is
| preliminary
| dwoldrich wrote:
| Private AI's and searchable personal data troves are the only way
| to go if you care about privacy.
|
| I speculate we'll discover there's very few unambiguously ethical
| uses of AI, much less for military applications. Them's the
| breaks.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| But this isn't a fight about Anthropic, or mass surveillance, or
| even AI. This is a fight about lawfare, constitutional rights,
| and corruption.
|
| The lawfare part of it is that to coerce an individual or a
| company, governments are willing to abuse their power. The Biden
| administration did it when pressuring social media companies to
| censor content. The Trump administration is doing it to a much
| greater extent with things like ordering every government agency
| to stop using Anthropic and by labeling them a supply chain risk.
|
| The ideological part of it is when Defense Sec Hegseth and Trump
| and AI Czar / PayPal Mafia member David Sacks repeatedly attack
| Anthropic as "woke", and it is clear they're undermining this
| company from their government positions based on Anthropic's
| speech (first amendment violation). This obviously is part of why
| they attacked Anthropic in such a public way.
|
| And the corruption part of it is OpenAI's leaders being big
| supporters of the MAGA movement and the Trump administration.
| Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, is the biggest donor ever to
| the MAGA PAC. Why did Hegseth grant a contract to OpenAI after
| banning Anthropic, even though OpenAI has the same red lines in
| their agreement (what Sam Altman claimed)? It's because of the
| corruption - give Trump and his family/friends money, and you'll
| get something back.
|
| The fight against these types of government abuse have ALWAYS
| been happening. But the abuse is much more in the open today, and
| much larger in scale than ever before. Scandals like Watergate
| would not even make the news today. And that is what the public
| should be waking up to and focusing on. We need to rethink our
| political system significantly and add a lot more protections
| against the kind of things the Trump 2.0 administration has done.
| telotortium wrote:
| One thing I've never heard a good answer to: If Anthropic is a
| supplier not to the Department of Defense itself, but to
| Palantir, why isn't supply chain risk the proper designation
| (assuming the government's concerns with Anthropic having
| authority over military missions is valid)?
|
| As for whether code written with Claude Code should be so
| considered - if it's just code that is subject to human review, I
| would argue that this use shouldn't be a supply chain risk. But
| with Claude Code PR Review and similar products, the chance that
| an AI product (not limiting to Anthropic here) could own a load-
| bearing part of the lifecycle of a critical piece of code becomes
| much larger, and deserves scrutiny.
| xvector wrote:
| > why isn't supply chain risk the proper designation
|
| Because you can't designate a company a SCR because you don't
| like the contract you signed with them.
| telotortium wrote:
| But the DoD signed a contract with Palantir.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| I'm not sure that "supply chain risk" is even the right term to
| be discussing.
|
| What Hegseth/Trump want to do is not just stop Anthropic models
| from being used by any military supplier pursuant to
| goods/services they are providing to the military, but rather
| say that if you do business with the military then you must not
| use Anthropic at all, even if that usage is entirely unrelated
| to your military contracts.
| wrs wrote:
| > So what's the Pentagon's plan...?
|
| The part of the Pentagon that did this is, to put it politely,
| not the part that's good at planning.
| ang_cire wrote:
| The author is naive.
|
| > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we're in a
| race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we
| want America to win the AI race? It's because we want to make
| sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don't want the
| winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the
| principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company
| or a private citizen.
|
| In the US currently, there are private citizens, and there are
| 'not-the-1%' citizens, where a Kavanaugh stop is legal, your
| voter information may be (or may have already been) seized by the
| DoJ or FBI, you may be tracked by out of state or federal agents
| on ALPRs with no warrant, for any reason, and where attending a
| legal protest may have your biometrics added to a database of
| potential domestic terrorists.
|
| Or maybe your tax money will just be used to blow up unidentified
| boaters or bomb girls' schools and homes, and you'll get no say
| in whether that's the case because the elected body that is there
| to issue a declaration of war (or not) as representatives of you,
| has abdicated that power to a cabinet of unelected white
| nationalists.
|
| But go off about how we're such a better country that believes in
| freedom and goodness.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _go off about how we 're such a better country that believes
| in freedom and goodness_
|
| Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably.
| Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago.
|
| Even if America fails, I'd argue a global republic is a
| brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.
| propagandist wrote:
| As much a republic as Rome was under Caligula.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| A republic without the rule of law is not a republic anymore.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _republic without the rule of law is not a republic
| anymore_
|
| An observation one can make when comparing a republic with
| the rule of law to one that ain't, whether across time or
| geography. There is a real benefit to having the American
| experiment prominent and continuing.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Is there actually a benefit? Or are we just watching the
| slow motion collapse of another empire convinced of its
| own immortality? History is a graveyard of experiments
| that thought they were the exception to the rule.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is there actually a benefit? Or are we just watching
| the slow motion collapse of another empire convinced of
| its own immortality?_
|
| These aren't mutually exclusive. The world is better off
| for Athens and the Roman and Harrapan and Haudenosaunee
| republics. (Book request: history of the republic. I've
| struggled to find one.)
|
| The CCP with internal elections was interesting and a
| genuine riposte to broadly-enfranchised republics. Xi as
| a dictator is not, not.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| But we are not talking about china.
| ang_cire wrote:
| > There is a real benefit to having the American
| experiment prominent and continuing.
|
| The American 'experiment' is one long history of the US
| doing really horrible things, but giving ourselves a pass
| because we dress it up in the name of freedom and self-
| determination.
|
| If you ignore our slavery and the genocide of Native
| Americans, it's easy to paint China's slavery and
| genocide as evils that are unique somehow.
|
| The real experiment of America is in seeing how self-
| deluded we can become if we continuously reinforce the
| false premise that our institutions are intrinsically
| good (or at least, nebulously "better").
| kelnos wrote:
| The difference is that China's slavery and genocide is
| happening today, within its own borders.
|
| Is that true of the US? Is there state-
| sanctioned/supported slavery in the US? Is the US
| committing genocide within its own borders? Arguably not?
|
| This doesn't make the US perfect or wonderful. We've been
| politically and militarily supporting a genocide in Gaza,
| as a stark example.
|
| But "the US did slavery and genocide in the past" and
| "China is doing slavery and genocide now" doesn't make
| the US and China equivalent _today_.
|
| And on top of that, I can go out and protest my country
| supporting Israel's garbage in Gaza. If I were a Chinese
| citizen and tried to do something like that in China, I'd
| be jailed.
| ang_cire wrote:
| The real lie here is that there's an ethical superpower.
|
| Just like being a billionaire (or, super-wealther, if you
| will), you don't get to be a superpower by doing good things.
|
| China and the US can both be bad, and they're both going to
| use AI for mass internal and external surveillance and weapon
| targeting.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _real lie here is that there 's an ethical superpower_
|
| It's a lie in the way cats are round is a lie--actually a
| lie, but one nobody brought up.
|
| I don't think Dwarkesh is arguing for global American
| hegemony. Just that if AI becomes dominant, having AIs
| embedded with American cultural values, broadly, is
| probably better than having ones seeded with Xi Jinping
| thought.
|
| > _China and the US can both be bad, and they 're both
| going to use AI for mass internal and external surveillance
| and weapon targeting_
|
| Agree. But I don't think any Chinese AI companies get to
| sue the CCP over it.
| pydry wrote:
| >AIs embedded with American cultural values, broadly, is
| probably better than having ones seeded with Xi Jinping
| thought.
|
| I'd really rather have a choice of both rather than be
| forced to accept "AI that downplays a 2 year old
| genocide" over "AI that covers up a 40 year massacre".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _rather have a choice of both_
|
| You do. So do I. If American AI goes by the wayside, we
| cease to have that choice anymore.
| loeber wrote:
| This is both (1) not necessarily true -- there's no first-
| principles reason why being powerful implies being
| unethical -- and (2) deeply pessimistic and defeatist. You
| can apply whataboutism and say that everyone's equally bad,
| but I assure you that there's a pretty big difference, even
| down to your quality life, between the types of systems you
| choose to participate in.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's not pessimistic or defeatist; you first have to
| recognize the limitations and failure modes of your
| system before you can think about changing it.
|
| Is it _possible_ to live in a world where powerful
| entities have gotten there through ethical means? Sure.
| We don 't live in that world, though.
|
| And yes, if I said "name me one powerful person/entity
| that got there through ethical means", I'm sure you could
| give me a name. But that name would surely be an outlier.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Add to that all the military posturing over Taiwan and it's
| clear that it's not "China doesn't do what the US does", it's
| "China hasn't done it...yet."
|
| The idea that anyone would be better off with China
| supplanting the US is asinine. This is the same government
| that committed the Tiananmen square massacre and still
| doesn't acknowledge that anything happened.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's "China hasn't done it...yet."_
|
| China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1959. To the degree we
| had a classical definition of intent-based genocide,
| Beijing continues to commit it in Tibet and Xinjiang.
|
| America's conscious is stained. But it's downright nonsense
| to go off about surveillance when the comparison is China.
| lovich wrote:
| I'm surveilled across pretty much every aspect of my life
| between basic Snowden level scooping of my data and
| public tracking like flock cameras. Democracy is
| increasingly becoming a joke as the richest in our
| society explicitly are trying to break it and we look
| more and more like mid 90s Russia.
|
| I want the US to win because I live in the US and it will
| probably benefit me, but we've largely stopped pretending
| to value the republic so I don't think we can claim a
| moral standing on these topics anymore.
|
| To reference your other comment, the common American man
| has as much de facto ability to sue our government and/or
| leaders as the common Chinese man
| ang_cire wrote:
| 1800 people detained at "alligator Alcatraz" had their
| records purged from ICE databases, and are completely
| unaccounted for. Literally disappeared, and the only
| people whose word we have they're alive are the same
| people who disappeared them.
|
| Yes, the Uyghur genocide and paramilitary suppression and
| settler-colonialism of Tibet and Xinjiang is horrific,
| and will (hopefully) be recognized in the future as a
| genocide on par with others that 'enjoy' historical
| notoriety, but let's not pretend we're not well on our
| way to doing that here.
|
| The rhetoric of ethnic superiority and nationalism and
| birthright that exists in our government is the exact
| same rhetoric that exists in Xi Jinping's "Imperial Han"
| nationalism.
| ang_cire wrote:
| I don't see anyone arguing that we'd be better off with
| China, but I am arguing that neither the US or China can be
| trusted with this, so the author positing "US AI dominance
| good to keep China at bay" is bad.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the author positing "US AI dominance good to keep
| China at bay" is bad_
|
| My read is they're saying we need an alternative to
| Chinese AI. Because with its industrial might, the
| default future is Chinese technological dominance.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| People are certainly arguing this, and it's something
| I've come to believe as well.
| margalabargala wrote:
| You quoted the article:
|
| > The whole background of this AI conversation is that
| we're in a race with China, and we have to win. But what
| is the reason we want America to win the AI race?
|
| Right now there are two contenders for first in the AI
| race. The US, and China.
|
| You spent the rest of your comment making the case that
| it is not good for the US to win. Implying, though not
| directly saying, we would be better off with China.
|
| You can say "oh wouldn't it be nice if Europe won
| instead" but they don't have anything in the race right
| now. We're stuck with the US or China.
| ang_cire wrote:
| > You spent the rest of your comment making the case that
| it is not good for the US to win. Implying, though not
| directly saying, we would be better off with China.
|
| This is you putting words in my mouth. It's bad if either
| wins.
|
| You seem to be operating under an unspoken personal
| belief that an AI race "win" inevitably spills out into
| global dominance.
|
| I don't know that it won't, but you likewise don't know
| that it will, and I'm not beholden to debate things from
| your chosen premise.
|
| I think AI will be bad for whoever is being targeted by
| it's controllers, but I don't think it will intrinsically
| disrupt the military spheres that exist now as a result
| of nuclear weaponry.
|
| China will use its AI to hurt the people it's hurting
| now.
|
| The US will use its AI to hurt the people it's hurting
| now.
|
| Imho, the idea of an AI arms race "winner" is just the
| new face of the securitization rhetoric that we used to
| justify our military excursionism during the Cold War.
| kelnos wrote:
| I know people IRL that are so fed up with the US's
| bullshit that they _do_ sometimes look at China and think
| their dominance might be better for the world. "Well,
| when's the last time China started a war or even deployed
| military forces in another country?", they ask... and I
| don't know how to respond to that (because they haven't,
| for at least 30 years that I can think of). And saying
| something like "well, they've been expanding their
| territory through extralegal means, and use coercion and
| grey-area tactics to get what they want" feels like an
| unsatisfying retort.
| M00nF1sh wrote:
| Is Trump really not a dictator? Meanwhile, China has been
| focusing on domestic development and investing in
| underdeveloped regions, including across Africa. China hasn't
| bombed girls' schools and then lied that it's their own
| country thrown the bomb.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is Trump really not a dictator?_
|
| No. There is no court in Beijing that can tell Xi to knock
| it off.
|
| > _China hasn 't bombed girls' schools_
|
| Read up on the treatment of Uyghur girls in the Chinese
| schools. It's Indian Removal Act stuff, except right now.
|
| Again, nobody is arguing America is a beacon of anything
| right now. But between America and China, one is an
| explicit and proud autocracy.
| recursive wrote:
| What's the difference between a court whose orders you
| can ignore and a court that doesn't exist? Sounds like a
| question for the philosophers.
| albelfio wrote:
| What the governments have done is different from what the
| cultural values of the two countries are. Chinese values
| and American values are different, and people can argue for
| one or the other. We, westerner, want our values to
| prevail. Dwarkesh wants to preserve our values of freedom.
| conradev wrote:
| I _love_ that you are allowed to go off about how we are a
| worse country without fear of jail or shunning or anything like
| that. You are using your rights properly!
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| You are assuming that they are American and that the account
| is tied to their real identity and that they are not willing
| to take risks to state the truth. The Trump administration is
| already attempting to persecute critics[1], including some
| for random comments posted online[2]. If "freedom of speech"
| is your metric for what makes you a better country, you are
| in fact literally proving their point.
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-
| security/2026/02/13/...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-
| ice-s...
|
| People have also been detained with intention to be deported
| for their views about Palestine, with online comments being
| part of how they're chosen for targeting:
|
| [3]
| https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2026/01/28/federal-
| go...
|
| There was also someone jailed for a month for quoting Trump's
| own words about a school shooting, "we have to get over it",
| in the context of Charlie Kirk's death, along with many other
| noted instances of retaliation against online comments around
| that incident:
|
| [4] https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-
| jailed-o...
| ks2048 wrote:
| People who buy the USA-vs-China race to a specific goal - do
| they really believe if China gets "AGI" first, they will
| immediately try to conquer the USA? How exactly will that go?
| cuuupid wrote:
| It's more likely they will continue expansionist policy in
| Asia which counters several American diplomatic goals:
|
| 1. Democracy and freedom worldwide
|
| 2. Economic access+prosperity with Asia
|
| 3. Pro-American sentiment
|
| (Not in order of importance, which shifts constantly)
|
| I think assuming China would beat the US in conventional war
| if they reach 'AGI' first is a stretch, even if this actually
| grants them a force advantage it's not like the US can no
| longer reach AGI. The risk is really more that if they reach
| 'AGI' and subsequently a force advantage, that they would no
| longer be deterred and more decisively move on Taiwan next
| year. Taiwan is key to [1] and [2] above.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| You didn't find this part naive?
|
| > But within 20 years, 99% of the workforce in the military,
| the government, and the private sector will be AIs. This
| includes the soldiers (by which I mean the robot armies), the
| superhumanly intelligent advisors and engineers, the police,
| you name it.
| ang_cire wrote:
| Frankly, I find that less 'naive' than I do 'dangerously
| possible'.
|
| Autonomous weaponry is one of the few ways that a fascist
| state could reasonably maintain violent control over a large
| and hostile populace.
|
| I guarantee Trump would rather have perfectly obedient
| killbots than critically thinking soldiers, or even just the
| 5 murderous assholes required to oversee tasking for 1000
| semi-autonomous police drones.
|
| The least plausible part is the private sector, which just
| doesn't work that way.
| elAhmo wrote:
| Great take. If the past year has taught us anything, it's that
| the US can't really be seen as the "good guys" in such a simple
| way. Many of these things have been happening for years, but
| war crimes, disregard for international law, blackmailing
| allies, killing their own citizens without accountability, and
| allowing foreign governments to heavily influence policy are
| all troubling signs.
|
| It's easy to point to China as a place where freedom of speech
| isn't present, but try asking members of the current
| administration or even Supreme Court judges who won the 2020
| election and see what kind of responses you get. That alone
| says a lot about the current state of things.
| possibleworlds wrote:
| > If the past year has taught us anything, it's that the US
| can't really be seen as the "good guys" in such a simple way.
|
| More like the past 200 years. America have never been the
| "good guys", and it is only Americans who seem to think they
| ever were.
| cuuupid wrote:
| If a majority of the Americans believed America was not
| generally the "good guys" it would be a sign of a failed
| democracy.
|
| Similarly normal for the population of any country that has
| net negative externalities from America to view them as the
| "bad guys".
|
| The current and growing anti-US sentiment is an expected
| result of an increasing gap between the US and the rest of
| the first world on economy and defense. The existence of a
| superpower is precluded on being viewed negatively by the
| rest of the world
| awesome_dude wrote:
| To be fair, almost every society portrays itself as the
| defender of whatever is right/good.
|
| And, to be equally as fair, the only genuinely good guys
| are the ones that are too small to enforce their will upon
| others directly - small countries without arms who are
| forced to find other ways to engage with others in order to
| achieve whatever goals they have (resource acquisition)
|
| The Americans have been extremely adept at dominating the
| discourse via non-government pathways (Hollywood)
| cuuupid wrote:
| There is nothing unconstitutional about the first paragraph of
| your criticism. What is unconstitutional is restricting your
| ability to write this criticism, which is not breached.
|
| You _could_ argue that this is a flaw in the constitution, and
| that none of the above should be legal, and that people who
| support those things should be restricted in their speech or
| ability to hold office. This was the status quo in politics for
| a while! These things have all existed for a long time but this
| seems particularly targeted at Trump, who was famously banned
| from most social media platforms for years.
|
| There are a lot of democracies (most of the EU for example)
| that take this stance on freedoms and will even overturn
| elections to prevent those who support those policies. The
| question is really 'does doing that protect freedom and
| democracy or infringe it?'
|
| As for the second paragraph, this is just a lie, Congress has
| not abdicated any type of war powers to the Cabinet. There has
| not been any type of declaration of war, and if Congress wanted
| to stop the DoD, they very much could and in fact came very
| close to doing so. If your Congress representative did not
| represent your interests (in this case voted nay), you can call
| email etc. them and their office or vote them out.
|
| > better country that believes in freedom and goodness
|
| I think you're letting your strong feelings here cloud your
| judgement, you can hold all of these opinions above without
| needing to fellate China, which is objectively worse on
| freedoms than the US. It's also important not to conflate
| "believes in freedom" with "perfectly meets my line of
| freedom."
| ang_cire wrote:
| Please point out where I "fellated" China.
| abcde666777 wrote:
| "Within 20 years 99% of the military will be AIs" That smells
| like such a baseless speculation that from the get go I'm not
| convinced of the author's rigor.
| empath75 wrote:
| It's also just a category error. It's like saying that 99% of
| farm workers are tractors or 99% of textile workers are looms.
| x0x0 wrote:
| It's just... immensely self-aggrandizing nonsense. The subhed
|
| > "Preface to the highest stakes negotiations in history."
|
| Like come on. The cuban missile crisis, for starters? Bro needs
| to calm tf down.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I went a bit further and then gave up on the piece.
| Unfortunate, as the premise seemed interesting.
| keybored wrote:
| > [99% AI soon]...
|
| > Our future civilization will run on AI labor. And as much as
| the government's actions here piss me off, in a way I'm glad this
| episode happened - because it gives us the opportunity to think
| through some extremely important questions about who this future
| workforce will be accountable and aligned to, and who gets to
| determine that.
|
| I stopped reading there because this is a pointless exercise.[1]
|
| This isn't a roundtable. You are not even at the table. There
| isn't some "thankfully time to discuss this..."--you are just
| out.
|
| The Machine doesn't need your labor? You are out. No norms. No
| discussions.
|
| You either try to forcefully take control of the situation or you
| see yourself get discarded.
|
| (I am here just assuming all the AI Maximalist (doom maximalist
| in this context, Trump and all) premises for the sake of the
| argument.)
|
| [1] I did read the last paragraphs and the tenor is the same. "We
| must make laws and norms through our political system"... just
| like with nuclear bombs, of all things.
| andyferris wrote:
| > So what's the Pentagon's plan -- to coerce and threaten to
| destroy every single company that won't give them what they want
| on exactly their terms?
|
| I mean... isn't that pretty much the way the current
| administration behaves in general? If the answer to this question
| is "yes", and the US executive does not in fact share the values
| of the author about free and open society, then the rest of the
| article is kinda moot (except the point that we should be talking
| about these things now, and encouraging congress to act).
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The administration believes that rights, in this case the right
| of corporate existence, are granted by the state. This is
| opposed to the liberal conception that rights are a product of
| natural existence - an essential feature of being.
| kelnos wrote:
| The right of corporate existence _is_ granted (or at least
| regulated, heavily) by the state.
|
| This administration believes that they don't need to treat
| all businesses equally under the law, and can use strong-arm
| intimidation tactics to get what they want. _That_ is the
| problem.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| As much as I dislike Trump, I can't imagine that the military,
| under ANY administration, would hesitate to seize any
| technology that they thought was critical and was being
| withheld from them, especially if they can claim we're at war
| when special provisions apply.
|
| I remember thinking about this - basically AGI - decades ago,
| and it was always obvious to me that if you created such a
| thing there'd come a day when the MIB would be ringing the
| doorbell.
| maxglute wrote:
| Lots of wank about muh democratic vs authoritarian values, at the
| end of the day, US DoD/DoW affiliated AI will 100% kill people,
| sooner than later and US AI researchers will have to grasp with
| that. I want to charitably say eventually, but as events show,
| inevitably, within the calendar year... current quarter, 100s
| children will die because of US AI in actions most of US do not
| support. One can argue AI will enable more selective targets, or
| there will simply be more targets, and given US behavior there
| will always be targets. Meanwhile PRC AI researcher's work might
| end up murdering children... someday, and even then most likely
| in a war / reunification / rejuvenation project that most of
| Chinese support. Until then, the side not blowing up kids is
| going to sleep more soundly.
| jongjong wrote:
| My attitude towards democracy has worsened since AI.
|
| The problem with democracy is that it can easily become a
| revolving door wherein capital holders can choose which
| candidates are allowed to approach the door.
|
| I think democracy works well when the monetary system is
| constrained; for example on gold or other scarce asset because
| that creates a better separation between money and state because
| then there would be less of an incentive for big companies to
| corrupt the revolving door to gain a financial advantage.
|
| In a monetary system where the government can create an unlimited
| amount of money, the incentive to corrupt the government and
| political process keeps increasing.
|
| I think democracy with a soft fiat money system is probably the
| most dangerous system because any moral objection can be filtered
| out of the running as we saw happen with Anthropic and the
| Department of War. It's because clearly it's the weapon
| manufacturers running that department behind the scenes; they
| have a huge financial interest to do so. The Department of War is
| the bread and butter of weapon manufacturers and defense
| contractors.
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