Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#261

Post by don_esteban » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:04 AM UTC

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #223

sfink wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason it's unpopular. If your company makes an herbicide that happens to be very good at killing off anyone who drinks it at a high concentration in their water supply, you're saying that there should be no way for your company to resist being used for mass murder (including unavoidable collateral damage)? Also, the core mission of the military is not "killing its adversaries through any means necessary".…

My conception is that the world would be a much simpler place if war was total. No one would start it unless it would be 200% it could win it. And we would all go through military training just in case, you know, a neighbor drank too much last night and thinks it can win against you. > The threat of violence is much more powerful than actually committing violence. While I agree with this statement, the only way the t…

Re: My conception is that the world would be a much simpler place if war was total. No one would start it unless it would be 200% it could win it

Now apply the same logic to the current Iran war.

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#262

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:08 AM UTC

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #174

felipeerias wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reportedly, Anthropic didn't know about Claude's role in capturing Maduro until they saw it on the headlines.

And why would they have an objection to that? They sold a product to a customer. They should have no business in how that customer uses their software.

[deleted]

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#263

Post by panta » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC

adriand wrote: post #129

oxdgd38 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know how this story will end for Dario. See Oppenheimer, Turing, Lavoisier, Galileo, Socretes etc. Power does not reside in the hands of people with knowledge or even wealth. And most technical people have not taken a political philosophy course or even a philosphy course. The Ring of Gyges story is 4000 years old.

I think Amodei is widely underestimated. The consensus viewpoint on the deal that OpenAI struck with the Pentagon is that Anthropic got played. I disagree. I'm certain that Amodei and his team gamed this out. In doing so, I think there's at least two conclusions they would have drawn: 1. Some other AI company would cut a deal with the Pentagon. There's no world in which all the labs boycott the Pentagon. So who? Choo…

> Choosing OpenAI does not harm the republic

if we consider AIs as "force multipliers" as we do with coding agents, it's easy to see how any AI company can harm the republic if the government they are serving is unethical and amoral.

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#264

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #57

When @sama announced within hours that OAI was replacing Anthropic with the "same conditions ", it was clear that either the DoW or OAI (or both) were fudging. DoW balked at Anthropic's conditions so OAI's agreement must have made the "conditions" basically unenforceable. And sure enough, my reading of it left the impression the OAI conditions were basically "DoW won't do anything which violates the rules DoW sets fo…

Agree with this completely.

But besides Sam Altman, this whole episode has made me totally and completely lose all respect for Paul Graham. I used to really idolize pg, and I really used to like his essays, but over the years I've found his essays increasingly displayed a disturbing lack of introspection, like they'd always seem to say that starting a startup is the best thing anyone can do, and if you're not good at startups then you kind of suck.

But his continued support of Altman in this instance (see https://x.com/paulg/status/2027908286146875591, and the comment in that thread where he replies "yes") is just so extra disappointing and baffling. First, his big commendation for Altman is that he's doing an AMA? Give me an f'ing break. When someone is a great spin doctor I'm not going to commend them for doing more spinning. It's like he has total blinders on and is unwilling to see how sama's actions in this instance are so disgusting and duplicitous. Maybe subconsciously he knows he's responsible for really launching sama into the public consciousness, so he now just is incapable of seeing the undeniably shitty things sama has done.

Oh well, I guess it's just another tech leader from the late 90s/early 00s who has just shown me he's kind of a shitty person like a lot of us.

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#265

Post by arduanika » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:22 AM UTC

hendzen wrote: post #92

@pg on @sama: "you could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king." In retrospect this quote comes across as way more foreboding given what we've learned about the scale of his ambitions and his willingness to lie and bend reality to gain power. Dario on the other hand seems to have an integrity that's particularly rare in this era. I hope he remains strong in the f…

> be the king

Which of these two CEOs wants to have an unelected spot in the decision loop of our government?

Once I dug into this story, I realized that only one of these companies was attempting a real power grab. Maybe the EAs are doomed to try coup after coup and lose every time.

The SCR part is excessive, though, especially if it's interpreted broadly. Altman gets credit for sticking up for Anthropic on that point, but not much credit, because it's so obvious that it's overkill.

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#266

Post by arduanika » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:26 AM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #36

dmix wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> signed up with surveillance company Palantir Just to nitpick, Palantir isn't doing surveillance like Flock. They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments. Some data pipelines include law enforcement surveillance data which get integrated with other software/databases to help police analyze it. There's no evidence they are collecting it themselves despite recent headlines. It's a relat…

Basically it’s glorified Excel. Take it out on the database purveyors, not Palantir.

Sure, Palantir is just one tool in the chain, and it's a lot more boring than people make it out to be.

On the other hand, a comment like yours does smack a bit of "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down."

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#267

Post by toraway » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:29 AM UTC

tmule wrote: post #140

oxdgd38 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know how this story will end for Dario. See Oppenheimer, Turing, Lavoisier, Galileo, Socretes etc. Power does not reside in the hands of people with knowledge or even wealth. And most technical people have not taken a political philosophy course or even a philosphy course. The Ring of Gyges story is 4000 years old.

Oppenheimer? Really? Quoting a review of an Oppenheimer biography: “Oppenheimer was clearly an enormously charming man, but also a manipulative man and one who made enemies he need not have made. The really horrible things Oppenheimer did as a young man – placing a poisoned apple on the desk of his advisor at Cambridge, attempting to strangle his best friend – and yes, he really did those things – Monk passes off as…

The source for the poisoned apple story is Oppenheimer himself, and otherwise uncorroborated to be clear. He spent his life clearly racked by feelings of inadequacy, guilt and self-doubt.

When combined with a somewhat paradoxical large ego and occasionally fanciful reshaping of his own life story or exaggeration, it's entirely plausible (if not likely) that this was in reality a brief intrusive thought or a partially realized fantasy blown up into a catchy anecdote that better fit his self-image of being unable to control his typically human qualities of anger and envy.

If it was Sam Altman, we'd have heard the story from the guy he tried to poison, who instead of filing a police report thought it showed Sam was a real go-getter and offered him his first job on the spot as VP at the company he founded (later forced out by Sam replacing him as CEO, but still considers him a friend with no hard feelings).

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

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Post by devinplatt » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:30 AM UTC

neya wrote: post #141

hendzen wrote: post #92

@pg on @sama: "you could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king." In retrospect this quote comes across as way more foreboding given what we've learned about the scale of his ambitions and his willingness to lie and bend reality to gain power. Dario on the other hand seems to have an integrity that's particularly rare in this era. I hope he remains strong in the f…

>Dario on the other hand seems to have an integrity that's particularly rare in this era. Anthropic actually partnered up with Palantir. They are not the saints you think they are, either. We should stop worshipping people and companies and stop putting them on pedestals. Just because one party is at fault, doesn't mean the other is automatically innocent. These are all for-profit companies at play here. https://inve…

FWIW he gives his ethical reasoning on his website:

> Broadly, I am supportive of arming democracies with the tools needed to defeat autocracies in the age of AI—I simply don’t think there is any other way. But we cannot ignore the potential for abuse of these technologies by democratic governments themselves. Democracies normally have safeguards that prevent their military and intelligence apparatus from being turned inwards against their own population, but because AI tools require so few people to operate, there is potential for them to circumvent these safeguards and the norms that support them. It is also worth noting that some of these safeguards are already gradually eroding in some democracies. Thus, we should arm democracies with AI, but we should do so carefully and within limits: they are the immune system we need to fight autocracies, but like the immune system, there is some risk of them turning on us and becoming a threat themselves.

Basically, he's afraid that not arming the government with AI puts it at a disadvantage vs. other governments he trusts less. Plus, if Anthropic is in the loop that gives them the chance to steer the direction of things a bit (what they were kicked out for doing).

It's not the purest ethical argument, but I also would not say that there is a clearly correct answer.

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#269

Post by throwaway290 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:33 AM UTC

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #233

throwaway290 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that for defense during an actual war started by another country? Legit war time measures can be a thing (that's why it's fucked if president can just start a war and then use that as excuse for any war time measures they like)

"Legit war time measures" is not a thing. If Congress declares war on Cuba or Venezuale for example, people who do not support it will not see the measures as "legit". The US has a lot of precedent of bombing/invading other countries at the whim of presidents without actually calling it a war for decades. And for better or worse, it is actually good that it is like this. Otherwise, if Congress declares war on Iran or…

if you didn't notice we are talking about wwii

usa was not aggressor

fat chance congress declaring war of aggression on a peaceful country

Re: Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies’

#270

Post by techpression » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:33 AM UTC

internet101010 wrote: post #251

techpression wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still need a lot of money and what their VC’s think is going to be more important than what Amedei does. Nothing more profitable than war and government. App Store rankings are meaningless, I have Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini all in top five, with a electronic mail app being 1 and a postal tracking service app (for a very small provider) being 3.

The value of hyperscalers' equity in Anthropic alone dwarfs their contracts with the government. Not to mention the revenue from hosting their models that helps justify the insane capex. Anthropic going to $0 would be a huge hair cut to all of their balance sheets.

They’ve only invested a couple of billions, like 20 or so split between them. Not really something that hurts them long or even medium term. Microsoft has multiple multi billion dollar government deals, I think Amazon is the only that doesn’t, Google also has a lot of government contracts, especially outside of cloud.