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Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

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Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#341
post #151

> “We felt that it wouldn't actually help anyone for us to stop training AI models,” How magnanimous! They are only thinking of others, you see. They are rejecting their safety pledge for you . > “We didn't really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.” Oops, said the quiet part out loud that it’s all about money. “I mean, if al…

> For all of you who thought Anthropic were “the good guys” Was anyone fooled by this? I mean, I know this is HN and there is a demographic here that gets all misty eyed about the benevolence of corporations. It takes a special kind of naivety to believe in those claims.

Plenty of people here actually bought into the do no evil, how great Apple is for the environment (with throw away soldered hardware), or whatever.

Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#342
post #329

This was under duress that government was going to use emergency act to force them anyway. I kind of wish they had forced the governments hand and made them do it. Just to show the public how much interference is going on. They say it wasn't related. Like every thing that has happened across tech/media, the company is forced to do something, then issues statement about 'how it wasn't related to the obvious thing the…

> Katie Sweeten, a former liaison for the Justice Department to the Department of Defense, said she’s not sure how the Pentagon can both declare a company to be a supply chain risk and compel that same company to work with the military. Makes perfect sense!!

Regardless of any specifics, I don't see any contradiction.

If a company is deemed a "supply chain risk" it makes perfect sense to compel it to work with the military, assuming the latter will compel them to fix the issues that make them such a risk.

Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#343

This was under duress that government was going to use emergency act to force them anyway. I kind of wish they had forced the governments hand and made them do it. Just to show the public how much interference is going on. They say it wasn't related. Like every thing that has happened across tech/media, the company is forced to do something, then issues statement about 'how it wasn't related to the obvious thing the…

They have been caught lying multiple times, about this, about the system capabilities, about their objectives.

Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "entertaining" is more the speed at which it's happening. It took Google probably 15 years to fully evil-ize. Anthropic ... two? There is no "ethical capitalism" big tech company possible, esp once VC is involved, and especially with the current geopolitical circumstances.

Apparently they got coerced by the current US admin. The department of war in particular, who want to use their products for military applications. Not much room for "safety" there. Then again, the entire US is currently speedrunning an evil build.

Shame they had to "coerce" such angels, who'd never do evil for profit otherwise...

Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#345
post #335

Hopefully this is the short-term move made only under duress so that they can file a lawsuit.

It's not like the regime they operate under care much about the courts. Legally they're also obliged to let the state into pretty much every crevice in their operations.

Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#347
I interviewed at Anthropic last year and their entire "ethics" charade was laughable.

Write essays about AI safety in the application.

An entire interview dedicated to pretending that you truly only care about AI safety and ethics and nothing else.

Every employee you talk to forced to pretend that the company is all about philanthropy, effective altruism and saving the world.

In reality it was a mid-level manager interviewing a mid-level engineer (me), both putting on a performance while knowing fully well that we'd do what the bosses told us to do.

And that is exactly what is happening now. The mission has been scrubbed, and the thousands of "ethical" engineers you hired are all silent now that real money is on the line.

Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge

#349

Of course they do. You would have to be delusional to think that they won't, at some point.

What's "entertaining" is more the speed at which it's happening. It took Google probably 15 years to fully evil-ize. Anthropic ... two? There is no "ethical capitalism" big tech company possible, esp once VC is involved, and especially with the current geopolitical circumstances.

I don't think it's fair to call out Anthropic to have become evil-ized while they were quite literally forced by the gov into that decision.
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