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Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

nytimes.com

351–360 of 475 posts

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#351
IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal merits of any of it.

From a practical/business perspective, I can see the government's position. It's very simple and it makes sense. Here's an analogy that I think is apt:

We use Solidworks, Altium Designer and JetBrains tools for our work. Imagine a scenario where each of these companies has license terms that restrict their use to certain domains or types of products they --for whatever reason; it does not have to be political-- do not agree with. Further imagine that the restrictions are different for each product, creating a virtual mine field of sorts.

Now imagine that every supplier adopts this philosophy over time; hardware, software, tools, components, fabricators, contractors, consultants, etc.

Well, very soon you will have to conclude that the only job you will be able to do is drive for Uber, if that.

The DoD/DoW is massive and massively multidisciplinary. They simply cannot afford to have vendors create no-go mine fields for them. It quickly becomes an unmanageable pain in the ass.

So, yeah, under those circumstances, I would not touch Anthropic with a ten foot pole duct-taped to another ten foot pole. It simply would not be a reasonable decision to work with them.

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah the GOP never had fangs. They can't even get the SAVE act passed.

What on earth are you talking about? Trump invaded multiple American cities. He created an $85 billion federal goon force. He's kidnapped or killed TWO DIFFERENT heads of state. He's destroyed our trade relationships. He's taken inflation from frustrating to existential. He's bulldozing national parks. He's started a brand spanking new forever war. He's utterly corrupted the Supreme Court. He's multiplied the nationa…

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Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#353
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the 40s" and "in the 1860s" here are obfuscations of "during WWII" and "during the civil war". Extraordinary actions in the name of national security during a literal civil war or during a time of total war are to be expected. The comparison to other times is not meaningful.

Isn't this exactly what the war on terror was for? To always be able to claim that the US is currently at war?

It seems like it was to be able to not be encumbered by civil rights while attempting to solve the problem of terrorism militarily.

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#354

Presumably this is going to lead to anthropic getting a big payday from the US gov for all the time their flagship product was banned and all the users they lost due to it

I don't think there's a law or precedent for that. The Tucker Act allows for a company to claim damages related to the seizure of property. That is not the same as having a product being stopped from 'shipping'[0]. Also, despite the US Concept of 'Corporate Personhood', Even the Citizens United decision did not set the bar for civil damages to be awarded for a civil rights violation to a 'corporate personhood'. i.e.…

> Even the Citizens United decision did not set the bar for civil damages to be awarded for a civil rights violation to a 'corporate personhood'

I'm almost upset at the notion only being invoked. Let's hope we don't see such a precedence emerge, especially around a company touting to be selling "intelligence".

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#355

I think this both overstates and understates the case. The evidence being weak does not invalidate the decision; as the court notes, the government gets substantial deference on matters of national security. The invalidation comes from the fact that this is clearly retaliatory behavior for speech; and the evidence for this is fairly strong since the administration has made public statements to that effect. The eviden…

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Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#356

IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal merits of any of it. From a practical/business perspective, I can see the government's position. It's very simple and it makes sense. Here's an analogy that I think is apt: We use Solidworks, Altium Designer and JetBrains tools for our work. Imagine a scenario where each of these companies has license terms that restrict their use to certain domains or types of products they --f…

Which is very different to labelling them a national security risk instead of just not awarding them contracts.

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#357
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the 40s" and "in the 1860s" here are obfuscations of "during WWII" and "during the civil war". Extraordinary actions in the name of national security during a literal civil war or during a time of total war are to be expected. The comparison to other times is not meaningful.

Isn't this exactly what the war on terror was for? To always be able to claim that the US is currently at war?

the war on terror is/was as real as the war on drugs and the war on christmas

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#358

IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal merits of any of it. From a practical/business perspective, I can see the government's position. It's very simple and it makes sense. Here's an analogy that I think is apt: We use Solidworks, Altium Designer and JetBrains tools for our work. Imagine a scenario where each of these companies has license terms that restrict their use to certain domains or types of products they --f…

It's entirely reasonable for the USG to say "we don't want to use a product with guardrails". Plenty of people have gotten annoyed with Fable and done exactly that!

But to prohibit anyone else from using it is a much bigger and more questionable step.

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#359
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic would estimate (and provide justification of) how much lost income (and perhaps brand equity, opportunity cost, etc.) it suffered as a result of the government's actions, and the judge would consider it and decide.

I know that’s how it works. How could they possibly estimate that in this specific case.

Generally, one side would come up with their idea of the number and state their reasoning, the other side would do the same, and the judge looks at their reasoning and decides what makes sense.

This requires a lot of work to estimate and reason and argue and adjudicate, you're not going to get a napkin math answer on an internet forum.

Re: Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal

#360

IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal merits of any of it. From a practical/business perspective, I can see the government's position. It's very simple and it makes sense. Here's an analogy that I think is apt: We use Solidworks, Altium Designer and JetBrains tools for our work. Imagine a scenario where each of these companies has license terms that restrict their use to certain domains or types of products they --f…

If Domino's Pizza offered to deliver pizza to the Pentagon but declined in their terms of service to deliver pizza-box-shaped packages to Tehran, do you think it would be a fair and proportionate response for the DoD to ban anyone in the defense supply chain from ever ordering pizza from Domino's?
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