Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by dust42 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 11:18 AM UTC

msla wrote: post #349

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…

If you're going to be cynical, at least credit them with some brains: MAGA isn't going to last forever, and when it collapses, the ones who publicly stood up to it will be better positioned to, I don't know, not face massive legal problems under whatever administration comes next. A government elected by middle-aged moms who use "Fuck ICE" as a friendly greeting isn't going to have any incentives to go easy on Palant…

Cynical or not, I think it was an absolutely brilliant move: "Mass domestic surveillance of Americans constitutes a violation of fundamental rights". I think they placed their bets on Sama signing a contract with the DoD and here we are, one day later the news that OpenAI signed a contract is out. An absolute PR disaster for OpenAI. And an absolute PR victory for Anthropic.

I think OpenAI's IPO will be interesting. Not even the conservative media will be happy about mass surveillance of Americans.

For non-Americans not much change, they don't really care about your rights more than about a pile of dog poo.

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

#352

Post by throwaway20261 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 11:26 AM UTC

I had subscriptions to both Anthropic and Openai. Cancelled my openai subscriptions. Companies without a modicum of ethics deserve to go extinct.

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

#353

Post by szmarczak » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 11:39 AM UTC

amai wrote: post #337

Dear Anthropic, Europe is a nice place, too. In case you need GPUs we have AI factories for you : https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-factori... We also don't engage in mass surveillance or develop autonomous weapons.

ASML is European too! Then they could make a deal with them. wink wink

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

#354

Post by cdwhite » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 11:42 AM UTC

What happens if somebody (maybe anthropic!) uses Claude Code Security to find & fix a vulnerability in some piece of open-source software---openssh, linux kernel, that sort of thing? Can the DoW use the resulting fix?

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

#355

Post by pennaMan » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 11:46 AM UTC

amai wrote: post #337

Dear Anthropic, Europe is a nice place, too. In case you need GPUs we have AI factories for you : https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-factori... We also don't engage in mass surveillance or develop autonomous weapons.

> europe

> we don't engage in mass surveillance

you're incredibly naive

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

#356

Post by gorbachev » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 11:53 AM UTC

amai wrote: post #337

Dear Anthropic, Europe is a nice place, too. In case you need GPUs we have AI factories for you : https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-factori... We also don't engage in mass surveillance or develop autonomous weapons.

> We also don't engage in mass surveillance

What?

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

#357

Post by ctmnt » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:01 PM UTC

bjackman wrote: post #342

ctmnt wrote: post #341

One interesting change between the last statement and this one: In the last statement Dario said that this designation had “never before been applied to an American company”. In the latest one the phrase is “never before publicly applied to an American company”.

How do you imagine a secret designation would work..?

I’m not sure what you’re referring to. It’s not (typically, as far as we know) a secret designation. We know of other companies designated as supply chain risks: Huawei, ZTE, and Kapersky are the first ones that come to mind.

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

#358

Post by Kim_Bruning » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:04 PM UTC

qsera wrote: post #238

cornel_io wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much is your investment (you don't have to be exact)? The bottom line is that if the investment is not profitable, then there will be less and less investment, because only fewer and fewer can afford to lose money and stick to their values, until no one will be investing; how ever high your values might be... Sticking to your values when it cost growth is not sustainable for publicly traded companies...

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation. Investors who put money in knew this. It's in the corporate charter. The corporate charter is a public document.

Fiduciary duty means the board and officers must act in accordance with the governing documents of the corporation.

Even a regular corporation doesn't need to be just for the purpose of "money goes up". The board has discretion on how they create value.

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

#359

Post by randunel » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:07 PM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #154

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…

I applaud Anthropic choice. Choosing principle over money is a hard choice. I love Anthropic's products and wish them success!

You applaud anthropic's choice to enhance mass surveillance of non-US people? If anthropic want mass surveillance, they should limit it to their own country, not to all other countries IMO.

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

#360

Post by surgical_fire » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:26 PM UTC

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #274

surgical_fire wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A question - being considered a supply chain risk is the same as being sanctioned? Or does it only affect their ability to be a defense supplier in the US (even if transitively?) It's an honest question by the way - not trying to throw any gothas. Just trying to understand if comoanies or people that don't orbit defense contracting are free to operate with Anthropic still or risk being sanctioned too.

It's not the same thing as being sanctioned. In broad outline, a supply chain risk is a company that can't sell to or have its products or components resold to USG; whereas, a sanctioned entity is one that can't do business with anyone -- anyone who does so will be punished.

Thanks for clarifying! After I asked this I found similar information buried across threads.