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Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

anthropic.com

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Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#221

Post by qsera »

lebovic wrote: post #94

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP update [1][2]. I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as you scale. But not every patt…

>driven by values

Would the people who have invested in the company like that? Or would they like the company to make some money? Are they going to piss off their investors by being "driven by values"?

I mean, please explain it to me how "driven by values" can be done when you are riding investor money. Or may be I am wrong and this company does not take investments.

So in the end you are either

1. funding yourselves, then you are in control, so there is at least a justification for someone to believe you when you say that the company is "driven by values".

2. Or have taken investments, then you are NOT in control, then anyone who trusts you when you say the company is "driven by values", is plain stupid.

In other words, when you start taking investment, you forego your right to claim virtuous. The only claim that you can expect anyone to believe is "MY COMPANY WILL MAKE A TRUCKLOAD OF MONEY !!!!"

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#222

Post by erelong »

I think Anthropic sounds well-intentioned but is blundering this incident in a big way and they really needed to work better towards a deal instead of isolating themselves with a "principled stance" that sets up a competitor to swoop in and take the contracts they had

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#223

Post by benny20twenty »

lich_king wrote: post #180
lebovic wrote: post #94

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP update [1][2]. I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as you scale. But not every patt…

My lived experience with tech companies is that principles are easy when they're free - i.e., when you're telling others what to do, or taking principled stances when a competitor is not breathing down your neck. So, with all respect, when someone tells me that the people they worked with were well-intentioned and driven by values, I take it with a grain of salt. Been there, said the same things, and then when the co…

[dead]

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#224

Post by ordu »

kyle-rb wrote: post #120
dmix wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just admirable it’s the obvious position to take and any alternative is head scratching. It’s clear that this is mostly a glorified loyalty test over a practical ask by the administration. Strangely reminiscent of Soviet or Chinese policies where being agreeable to authority was more important than providing value to the state.

If it's a loyalty test then you'd think the DoD would be willing to let them "fail" and simply drop the contract, but instead they're threatening to label Anthropic a supply chain risk. If we're going by Occam's razor: it's Friday so Pete probably started drinking ~10:30-11am.

> If it's a loyalty test then you'd think the DoD would be willing to let them "fail" and simply drop the contract, but instead they're threatening to label Anthropic a supply chain risk.

It is not just a test, it is PR of sorts. They want to bully everyone into loyalty.

> If we're going by Occam's razor: it's Friday so Pete probably started drinking ~10:30-11am.

If we're going by Occam's razor, then we should cut away the drinks. USSR started its terror not because someone was drunk, it was a deliberate action to make everyone afraid to do anything. They targeted people at random and executed them accusing them of counterrevolution or espionage. The goal was to instill fear.

Now Putin regime does the same, they are instilling fear in people. It is a basic authoritarian reflex to make people afraid of being marked as disloyal. They prefer to do it in unpredictable ways to create an uncertainty of where the red lines are so people don't try even to toeing them.

Trump is not very skilled in the mechanics of terror. He is predictable which is unfortunate for a would-be dictator. It is an incompetence, and if a hypothesis resort to it, it is a bad sign for a hypothesis. But AFAIK no hypotheses explaining Trump can avoid introducing his incompetence into the picture. In this light the reliance of a hypothesis on incompetence loses its discriminatory power.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#225

Post by jart »

kyle-rb wrote: post #120
dmix wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just admirable it’s the obvious position to take and any alternative is head scratching. It’s clear that this is mostly a glorified loyalty test over a practical ask by the administration. Strangely reminiscent of Soviet or Chinese policies where being agreeable to authority was more important than providing value to the state.

If it's a loyalty test then you'd think the DoD would be willing to let them "fail" and simply drop the contract, but instead they're threatening to label Anthropic a supply chain risk. If we're going by Occam's razor: it's Friday so Pete probably started drinking ~10:30-11am.

They're not threatening to do that. They just did. Read the tweet linked in the article.

> In conjunction with the President's directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic's technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service. https://x.com/SecWar/status/2027507717469049070?s=20

This has never happened before. It just goes to show how overextended the USG is these days. America is broke. Anthropic is about to IPO. Most stock market money comes from foreign countries like Japan these days. All those people are going to trust Anthropic more if they believe the company is neutral among nations and acting as a check and balance to power.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#226

Post by cornel_io »

qsera wrote: post #221
lebovic wrote: post #94

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP update [1][2]. I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as you scale. But not every patt…

>driven by values Would the people who have invested in the company like that? Or would they like the company to make some money? Are they going to piss off their investors by being "driven by values"? I mean, please explain it to me how "driven by values" can be done when you are riding investor money. Or may be I am wrong and this company does not take investments. So in the end you are either 1. funding yourselves…

As an investor in Anthropic, I'd say that anyone who wasn't aware of where they stood on various values issues the whole time should not have been putting money in, it was not hidden.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#227

Post by ajam1507 »

lich_king wrote: post #180
lebovic wrote: post #94

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP update [1][2]. I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as you scale. But not every patt…

My lived experience with tech companies is that principles are easy when they're free - i.e., when you're telling others what to do, or taking principled stances when a competitor is not breathing down your neck. So, with all respect, when someone tells me that the people they worked with were well-intentioned and driven by values, I take it with a grain of salt. Been there, said the same things, and then when the co…

> However, in this instance, it does seem that Anthropic is walking away from money.

The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in court, and the financial fallout from losing the government contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from consumers. Not to mention that giving in would mean they lose lots of their employees who would refuse to work under those terms. In this case, the principles are less than free.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#228

Post by Grimburger »

kyle-rb wrote: post #164
dmix wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This administration has repeatedly shown it will try to bully or take an outrageous negotiating position just to gain featly. Whether they get anything or whether the dispute is actually what the label says should always be treated with skepticism, especially these days with social media information wars. That’s the benefit of realpolitik when you’re a superpower, you often don’t actually need anything, you can just…

It seems like they'd have a stronger negotiating position if they had an alternative contractor waiting in the wings before they accused Anthropic of being woke traitors, as opposed to a threat to migrate away over the next 6 months. But again, the sophistication of their strategery might also have a negative correlation with Hegseth's BAC.

Grok was approved for DoD work only a few days ago, they have an alternative if they want.

The Pentagon, much like everyone else, will only want to use the best model available though.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#229

Post by John23832 »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #50

The people that need to see this are the VPs and execs at Apple, Meta, Google, OAI so they can perhaps reflect on what it looks like to be a good & principled person as opposed to just a successful person.

No offense,but this is where having immigrants throughout the power structure of these companies becomes an issue. We have a administration who clearly is not above using all avenues to apply pressure to get the things that they want done done,

How can we expect the VPs of these companies to make to make tough decisions like this when half can be pressured via immigration status? It’s hard enough being a normal citizen sticking your neck out in these circumstances.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#230

Post by rustystump »

lich_king wrote: post #180
lebovic wrote: post #94

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP update [1][2]. I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as you scale. But not every patt…

My lived experience with tech companies is that principles are easy when they're free - i.e., when you're telling others what to do, or taking principled stances when a competitor is not breathing down your neck. So, with all respect, when someone tells me that the people they worked with were well-intentioned and driven by values, I take it with a grain of salt. Been there, said the same things, and then when the co…

I call this being ethically convenient. I think anthropic is playing to the crowd. This admin will be gone soon enough so no need dragging the brand into mud. Just need to hold out. They have enough money that walking away from the money isnt impressive. But pissing off the gov is pretty fun and far more interesting.
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