> In capitalism, the market decides.
> In oligarchy, connections and donations decide.
> It sure look like the US is transitioning from the former to the latter.
One has to wonder on what planet Gary Marcus has lived so far.
The whole thing was a scam
41–50 of 347 posts
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#42"On the very same day that Altman offered public support to Amodei [CEO of Anthropic], he signed a deal to take away Amodei’s business, with a deal that wasn’t all that different. You can’t get more Altman than that."
He's young, he's got enough time to outdo himself.
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that’s not accurate at all, and in case you are genuinely confused: 1. Anthropic should be free to sell its services under whatever legal terms and conditions it wants. 2. The Pentagon should be free to buy those services, negotiate for different terms, refuse to buy those services, and terminate contracts subject to any termination clauses. You may or may not agree with what the Pentagon wants to do, but if thin…
1. Agree 2. Agree > The problem is that the Pentagon is trying to bury Anthropic as a company, calling it a danger to the United States because it exerted its non-controversial right in (1). My take is that the DoD very much wanted to continue using Claude. However, Amodei refused to budge on relinquishing final say over Claude usage. The DoD took this as a personal offense (how dare this guy, does he know who we are…
> Amodei refused to budge on relinquishing final say over Claude usage.
So did Altman. The terms of each company’s agreement with the DoW are roughly the same when they come out of the wash.
“Mr. Altman negotiated with the Department of Defense in a different way from Anthropic, agreeing to the use of OpenAI’s technology for all lawful purposes. Along the way, he also negotiated the right to put safeguards into OpenAI’s technologies that would prevent its systems from being used in ways that it did not want them to be.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/openai-agreeme...
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sweet, excellent idea for the government to tie itself to a bubble. If it doesn't pop while Trump's in office, his successor will inherit this mess, bubble will pop, and that person will have to deal with managing the fallout. The time to lock-in gainful employment is now (if you can).
A bubble is just a great opportunity to pass more money to yourself and your friends.
And then hoover up assets after the bubble pops.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#45PS: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.
It's bizarre seeing the outright bribery. A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. You couldn't give money directly to the candidate for personal use. Donations went to the campaign of the guy who already agreed with you. The FEC used to take a dim view of outright pay-for-service, even dressed up. This is new. And now people need to decide how t…
IANAL, IIRC: SCOTUS has very narrowly defined bribery as explicit quid pro quo. And sometimes not even then.
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#46[flagged]
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#47I think he is right here, but it is interesting to see that Gary Marcus is transitioning to AI too (writing style...)
> But here’s the kicker
> Let that sink in
The biggest tell for AI writing is just being AI adjacent. I've started avoiding reading AI articles here because (surprise) they all feel like a chatGPT transcript.
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> generally forbidden in Socialist EU This is one of those cases where you wish your critics were right. One in 40 people in Brussels is a lobbyist, but apparently it's forbidden.
Very kind of you to only pick one error in the parent post to critique.
I've been working with UK/EU lobbying data in recent months, so that's the one I felt competent to pick on. I thought I'd leave the nature of capitalism to someone else.
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's bizarre seeing the outright bribery. A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. You couldn't give money directly to the candidate for personal use. Donations went to the campaign of the guy who already agreed with you. The FEC used to take a dim view of outright pay-for-service, even dressed up. This is new. And now people need to decide how t…
In what sense is this new, other than a different side cares about the optics?
OP explained it clearly: “you couldn’t $1, now you can”. It would be helpful if you explained which part did you not understand. Alternatively, that barking sound I hear might be a sea lion.
Re: The whole thing was a scam
#50A lot of rightfully righteous anger here. I'm amused that this wasn't the response when semiconductors from Taiwan were exempted from tarrifs. There, the bribe was much smaller...