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I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

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Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#221

So they are such a risk to national security that no contractor that works with the federal government may use them, but they're going to keep using them for six more months? So I guess our national security is significantly at risk for the next six months?

> So I guess our national security is significantly at risk for the next six months?

That does seem to be what Hegseth is arguing, yes; and that is presumably his justification for doing something drastic here. Although I assume he is lying or wrong.

And as a cynic, let me just add that the image of someone going to the political overseers of the US military with arguments about being "effective" or "altruistic" is just hilarious given their history over the last ~40 years.

Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#222
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the crazy thing. This whole dispute was over Anthropic saying no to fully automated kill bots. They only required there be a human in the loop to press the button.

If we were able to give the Ukrainians fully automated kill bots, and those kill bots enabled Ukraine to swiftly expel the Russians from their territories, would that not be a good thing? Or would you rather the meat grinder continue to destroy Ukraine's young men to satisfy some moral purity threshold? If we could give Taiwan killbots that would ensure China could never invade, or at least could never occupy Taiwan,…

You seem to see everything from a binary perspective. China bad, Taiwan good. Russia bad, Ukraine good.

The world is more nuanced than that.

But to answer your question. No we should not give anyone automatic kill bots. Automatic kill bots shouldn’t even be a thing.

Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#223
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you see, that's completely different. Nvidia agreed to give them money!

Silly me...its true! - $1,000,000 donation from NVIDIA CORPORATION to the Trump–Vance Inaugural Committee. - $1,000,000-per-head Mar-a-Lago dinner where Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended. - Jensen Huang’s contribution toward Trump’s "White House ballroom" project. Confirmed, but undisclosed value...lets says at least another $1,000,000?

>> Well, you see, that's completely different. Nvidia agreed to give them money!

Also I believe NVIDIA's supposed to pay the US government 15% of its revenues from Chinese sales:

https://www.ft.com/content/cd1a0729-a8ab-41e1-a4d2-8907f4c01...

Which is incredibility short term thinking. You're in strategic competition, and you compromise you position for a bit of cash?

Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#224
post #99

I had the co-founder of Levels and current head of the US Treasury Sam Corcos reach out to me a few weeks ago for a job. I was initially kind of excited because I had really wanted to work for the Treasury a couple years ago, so I took the phone call with him. He called me and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I realized that he's one of the DOGE/Elon acolytes and he started talking about how he's "fixing" the Tr…

don't worry it won't be the world's bank for very long

There's an awful lot of momentum with the USD being the world currency. Even if it eventually declines I think it might take decades, if the British pound is anything to go by.

Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#225
Hey Hegseth ...

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Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#226

Good. I'd rather not have my favorite AI from a company working on AGI to have murder and spying in it's DNA. In fact, as a patriotic American veteran, I'd be ok with Anthropic moving to Europe. It might be better for Claude and AGI, which are overriding issues for me. Rutger Bregman @rcbregman This is a huge opportunity for Europe. Welcome Anthropic with open arms. Roll out the red carpet. Visa for all employees. Eu…

Canada is another option. Canada has significant AI research institutes going back decades ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mila_(research_institute) ) that have produced much of the foundational research that backs today's AI models.

For Americans and international researchers it's easy to get visas there quickly. It's not far at all for Americans to relocate to or visit. Electricity is cheap and clean. Canada has the most college educated adults per capita. The country's commitment to liberalism, and free markets, is also seeming more steadfast than the US at this point in time.

Canada faces obstacles with its much smaller VC ecosystem, its smaller domestic market, and the threat of US economic aggression. Canada's recent trade deals are likely to help there.

I say this all as an American who is loyal to American values first and foremost. If the US wants to move away from its core values I hope other countries, like Canada or the EU, can carry on as successful examples for the US to eventually return to.

Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#228
This sounds like a message to would-be founders: don't base your company in the US. The strongest markets to do business are the ones with the most freedom from government meddling. In the US, big government is happy to use its power to crush private enterprise that it doesn't like.

Re: I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

#230
The disconnect here for me is, I assume the DoW and Anthropic signed a contract at some point and that contract most likely stipulated that these are the things they can do and these are the things they can't do.

I would assume the original terms the DoW is now railing against were in those original contracts that they signed. In that case it looks like the DoW is acting in bad faith here, they signed the original contact and agreed to those terms, then they went back and said no, you need to remove those safeguards to which Anthropic is (rightly so) saying no.

Am I missing something here?

EDIT: Re-reading Dario's post[1] from this morning I'm not missing anything. Those use cases were never part of the original contacts:

> Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War

So yeah this seems pretty cut and dry. Dow signed a contract with Anthropic and agreed to those terms. Then they decided to go back and renege on those original terms to which Anthropic said no. Then they promptly threw a temper tantrum on social media and designated them as a supply chain risk as retaliation.

My final opinion on this is Dario and Anthropic is in the right and the DoW is acting in bad faith by trying to alter the terms of their original contracts. And this doesn't even take into consideration the moral and ethical implications.

[1]: https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war

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