Live data from Hacker News

Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

apps.apple.com

101–110 of 130 posts

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer naivete to think the United States has any legal or moral obligation to respect the privacy of the global population.

Legal, no. Moral, absolutely. I mean, aren't other people human?

Other people are human and I agree that violence used against non-Americans overseas should be used only with very serious consideration and with checks and safeguards (albeit not with the same absolute protections as when used domestically).

But privacy? Yeah, no, if it benefits the safety or interests of US even slightly to know what the world is thinking, seeing, and planning, I have zero qualms using all tools at our disposal.

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#104

I was going to say that I was surprised that enough "normal" users had heard about the Pentagon news story that it would make a difference. Then I remembered that the app store rankings [1] seem to be based on activity from just the past day or so. And so a lot of "plugged-in" users switching to Claude all at once then would be enough to briefly send Claude to #1, since the migration would be sizeable in comparison t…

I don't think you realize how mainstream the story has been. My grandfather, who is as non-tech as humanly possible, brought it up to me.

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#105
post #79
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hardly surprising given that OpenAI already signed a military contract. [0] Where was the open letter then? No-one cared. Recently, Claude was already used by the administration for the operation in Venezuela [1] alongside Palantir. Anthropic did nothing at the time and again... No-one cared. Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No? The decision for the contract was already predetermined for OpenAI,…

>Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No? DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here. "Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now: Mass domestic surveillance... Fully autonomous weapons." https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war >So the question is, why wasn't the op…

> DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here.

The DoD (NSA) has crossed those lines before with big tech when they allowed mass domestic surveillance on their own citizens (PRISIM) in the past. They are willing to break laws to get the job done which probably in 10 years time those actions would be found illegal later. By then it would be too late.

Companies should expect that governments may try to bend or even break rules or laws under veiled pretenses.

So why expect that they would be any different today? It is the nature of governments.

Scorpion (DoD) tells frog (Anthropic) to help them cross the river on the condition that they won't kill them. If you knew that the Scorpion always breaches the contract first, why work with them in the first place?

> again, this story isn't about people that are against any military contract.

Gen AI mass surveillance conducted by the adminstration (or any) is already done by Google, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle and Palantir and soon xAI (via X). So again, no point is being made here.

Given all the above, the clear indication was OpenAI already signed a military contract last year. Why didn't the employees and insiders make an open letter pledging that AI should not be used for mass surveillance back then?

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#106
post #105
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No? DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here. "Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now: Mass domestic surveillance... Fully autonomous weapons." https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war >So the question is, why wasn't the op…

> DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here. The DoD (NSA) has crossed those lines before with big tech when they allowed mass domestic surveillance on their own citizens (PRISIM) in the past. They are willing to break laws to get the job done which probably in 10 years time those actions would be found illegal later. By then it would be too late. Companies should expect that governme…

>mass surveillance conducted by the adminstration (or any) is already done by Google, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle and Palantir and soon xAI (via X). So again, no point is being made here.

some companies do it, so that means anthropic has to do it? this seems like nihilism

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#107

I was going to say that I was surprised that enough "normal" users had heard about the Pentagon news story that it would make a difference. Then I remembered that the app store rankings [1] seem to be based on activity from just the past day or so. And so a lot of "plugged-in" users switching to Claude all at once then would be enough to briefly send Claude to #1, since the migration would be sizeable in comparison t…

I don't think you realize how mainstream the story has been. My grandfather, who is as non-tech as humanly possible, brought it up to me.

Agreed. My wife acts as my North Star for knowing whether tech news is in the mainstream. She doesn’t care about tech.

She said yesterday and Friday her instagram was full of people deleting ChatGPT and downloading/paying for Claude.

It’s definitely beyond the tech bubble.

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#108
post #106
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here. The DoD (NSA) has crossed those lines before with big tech when they allowed mass domestic surveillance on their own citizens (PRISIM) in the past. They are willing to break laws to get the job done which probably in 10 years time those actions would be found illegal later. By then it would be too late. Companies should expect that governme…

>mass surveillance conducted by the adminstration (or any) is already done by Google, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle and Palantir and soon xAI (via X). So again, no point is being made here. some companies do it, so that means anthropic has to do it? this seems like nihilism

> some companies do it, so that means anthropic has to do it?

Then I would have expected open letters from anon OpenAI employees from the very beginning in 2025 when those military contracts were signed as a reassurance / pledge around those certain boundaries since they ultimately knew. But of course, only after Anthropic rejected the DoW in 2026. Very late for that.

Anthropic should've known about PRISIM and the nature of governments and should have not tested the benefit of the doubt in the first place since it's directly incompatible with their 'principles'. Otherwise none of this would have happened.

Their first mistake was trusting the government (especially this one) and like almost all of them, they are ready to test what they can get away with and breach the contract first.

Anthropic naively expected that the administration (and any other) of this time would change for the better today. Their lesson is that they should never trust governments to agree to their contracts.

Re: Claude becomes number one app on the U.S. App Store

#109
post #65

The sheer irony of admitting spying on the global population from both.

And the sheer irony of Americans proclaiming Anthropic as morally superior because of it. Do they think America is the only country or something? I thought that was just a trope.

I suspect any 5 eyes countries can get any information they want on any citizen in any of the countries in that unholy agreement.
Post reply on HN