Yes nothing says "safety of American democracy" like building custom models for spies to know everything about everyone
Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#822It's not named the Department of War because Congress didn't rename it. Other than that, good on ya.
And what if congress renames it tomorrow? They have the votes. These sort of procedural gotchas are as stupid as they are boring.
This is a willfully ignorant misreading of what's actually going on. They've decided to use the "Department of War" moniker in part because they think it sounds cool, but more significantly because it demonstrates they can break the law with impunity. Hence, there has not been a vote on the matter.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#823I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…
> Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are
I don't think you understand how capitalism and corporations work, friend. Even if Anthropic is a public benefit corporation it still exists in the USA and will be placed under extensive pressure to generate a profit and grow. Corporations are designed to be amoral and history has shown that regardless of their specific legal formulation they all eventually revert to amoral growth driven behavior.
This is structural and has nothing to do with individuals.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#824Something feels off about this announcement. Anyone else? Credit where it's due, going on record like this isn't easy, particularly when facing pressure from a major government client. Still, the two limits Anthropic is defending deserve a closer look. On surveillance: the carve-out only protects people inside the US. Speaking as someone based in Europe, that's a detail that doesn't go unnoticed. On autonomous weapon…
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Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#825I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me: > But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"? Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing > AI-driven domestic mass surveillance And neither denounces partially a…
I think it's phrased just fine. It's not up to Dario to try to make absolute statements about the future.
It's not called The Department of War.
It's just incredible to me that people think this is some kind of bold statement defying the administration when it is absolutely filled with small and medium capitulations, laying out in numerous examples how they just jumped right in bed with the military.
And no one seems disturbed by the blatant Orwellian doublespeak throughout. "We thoroughly support the mission of the Department of War"--because War is Peace.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#826I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…
> Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are After 20 years of everyone in this industry saying "we want to make the world a better place" and doing the opposite, the problem here is not really related to people's "understanding". And before the default answer kicks in: this is not cynicism. Plenty of folks here on HN and elsewhere legitimately believe that it…
and that's okay. so we judge them one decision at a time. So far, Anthropic is good in my book.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#827I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…
“AI chips are like nuclear weapons” (paraphrasing [1]) and “I should be in charge of it” (again paraphrasing) is just not a serious position regardless of intentions.
[1]: https://www.axios.com/2026/01/20/anthropic-ceo-admodei-nvidi...
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#828As a non-American they've lost me already at the first sentence.
United States, even before Trump, has always been about projecting power rather than spreading democracy. There are several non-Western, former colonies who does democracy better than the US. Despite democratic backsliding being a worldwide phenomenon very few have slid back as much as the US. The US have regularly supported or even created terrorists and authoritarian regimes if it meant that the country wouldn't "go woke." The ones that grew democracy, grew in spite of it.
This statement shows just how much they align with the DoD ("DoW" is a secondary name that the orange head insists it's the correct one. Using that terminology alone speaks volumes.) rather than misalign. This coupled with their drop of their safety pledge a few days ago makes it clear they are fundamentally and institutionally against safe AI development/deployment. A minute desagreement on the ways AI can destroy humanity isn't even remotely sufficient if you're happy to work with the bullies of the world in the first place.
And the reason is even more ridiculous. Mass surveillance is bad... because it's directed at us rather than the others? That's a thick irony if I'd ever seen one. You know (or should have known) foreign intelligence has even less safeguards than domestic surveillance. Intelligence agencies transfer intercepted communications data to each other to "lawfully" get around those domestic surveillance restrictions. If this looks at all like standing up that's because the bar has plunged into the abyss, which frankly speaking is kind of a virtue in USA.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#829Nitpick: It's still the Department of Defense, not the Department of War. Don't let the chuds live in their delusional fantasy world.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#830I truly do not understand why anyone thinks serious work can be done with their models, let alone government work. Their models do no hold a candle to Open AI.