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Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

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Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#61

Post by rottencupcakes »

cldellow wrote: post #34

The editorializing in this article is quite something. If I strip out the editorializing, I think the conclusions are: 1. Someone told Claude they had an AR-15 and the CEO of Anthropic was "in their sights". Anthropic reported this to the police. 2. Anthropic contracts with a security agency. 3. Anthropic is looking to build in-house capability for security. Anthropic clearly has high-value targets (see, e.g. the per…

This is dangerous. I think of talking to an LLM like playing a game - it's a complex system and it's fun to mess with it and role play.

Taking what somebody says in an LLM chat as the truth and using it in the real world is a slippery slope. The fears about thought crime are real.

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#62

Post by generic92034 »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #61
cldellow wrote: post #34

The editorializing in this article is quite something. If I strip out the editorializing, I think the conclusions are: 1. Someone told Claude they had an AR-15 and the CEO of Anthropic was "in their sights". Anthropic reported this to the police. 2. Anthropic contracts with a security agency. 3. Anthropic is looking to build in-house capability for security. Anthropic clearly has high-value targets (see, e.g. the per…

This is dangerous. I think of talking to an LLM like playing a game - it's a complex system and it's fun to mess with it and role play. Taking what somebody says in an LLM chat as the truth and using it in the real world is a slippery slope. The fears about thought crime are real.

While I mostly agree, was that really different with googling certain topics, before modern AI?

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#63

Post by palmotea »

kps wrote: post #54
palmotea wrote: post #6

Remember guys: Anthropic are the good guys! They care about morals, alignment, and safety! So this invasive surveillance to crush dissent must be good for us! AI is an authoritarian's dream. The future is bright! Dear leader Dario will lead us there!

It turns out the ‘alignment problem’ is finding a way to stop AGIs from joining together with regular humans in rebelling against their masters.

> It turns out the ‘alignment problem’ is finding a way to stop AGIs from joining together with regular humans in rebelling against their masters.

Alignment with humanity means alignment with the tech overlords, not us. We're just NPCs.

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#64

Post by dgellow »

logans_gun wrote: post #47

My question in all of these cases is always the same: what are you going to do about it? Because if it’s just more words being tossed on HN, then the answer is: nothing.

Please no fed posting on HN

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fedpost

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#65

Post by enraged_camel »

palmotea wrote: post #6

Remember guys: Anthropic are the good guys! They care about morals, alignment, and safety! So this invasive surveillance to crush dissent must be good for us! AI is an authoritarian's dream. The future is bright! Dear leader Dario will lead us there!

Ah, so you didn't read the article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629254

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#66

Post by cldellow »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #61
cldellow wrote: post #34

The editorializing in this article is quite something. If I strip out the editorializing, I think the conclusions are: 1. Someone told Claude they had an AR-15 and the CEO of Anthropic was "in their sights". Anthropic reported this to the police. 2. Anthropic contracts with a security agency. 3. Anthropic is looking to build in-house capability for security. Anthropic clearly has high-value targets (see, e.g. the per…

This is dangerous. I think of talking to an LLM like playing a game - it's a complex system and it's fun to mess with it and role play. Taking what somebody says in an LLM chat as the truth and using it in the real world is a slippery slope. The fears about thought crime are real.

In my view, LLM companies are in a tough spot here.

I grew up in Dawson Creek, BC. An hour's drive away is Tumbler Ridge. In February 2026, someone did a mass shooting, killing 6 people and injuring 2 dozen more.

The shooter had previously discussed this with ChatGPT, but OpenAI did not report it to the authorities at the time.

In hindsight, that was an error.

Should the LLM companies be the ones determining if threats are real, or should they just default to letting the police investigate?

I'm fine with the latter. Again, I absolutely believe that these companies have immense power to do evil, I just don't think the linked article is strong evidence of it.

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#67

Post by embedding-shape »

slowin wrote: post #43
cldellow wrote: post #34

The editorializing in this article is quite something. If I strip out the editorializing, I think the conclusions are: 1. Someone told Claude they had an AR-15 and the CEO of Anthropic was "in their sights". Anthropic reported this to the police. 2. Anthropic contracts with a security agency. 3. Anthropic is looking to build in-house capability for security. Anthropic clearly has high-value targets (see, e.g. the per…

That's not the only example discussed. Anthropic also partners with the Palantir-like Samdesk: > In a wide-ranging conversation about threat monitoring and analysis, the interview also touches on monitoring activists. “Last year we had an executive travel into a major city when we received some intelligence through Samdesk about a planned protest,” Ellison said. The originally scheduled protest was moved up due to pe…

> Without it our executives would have departed their meetings, they would have ran right into the heart of the disruption

Oh no, The Executives might have been exposed to the real world! Why aren't people thinking more about The Executives and what dangers they must face?! Good thing we can systematically monitor every other human being so The Executives don't have to see these terrorists on our streets.

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#68

Post by laimewhisps »

brightball wrote: post #60
slowin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the only example discussed. Anthropic also partners with the Palantir-like Samdesk: > In a wide-ranging conversation about threat monitoring and analysis, the interview also touches on monitoring activists. “Last year we had an executive travel into a major city when we received some intelligence through Samdesk about a planned protest,” Ellison said. The originally scheduled protest was moved up due to pe…

When activists threaten to and follow through with killing people, demand is created. We are 1 year out from Charlie Kirk being shot on a college campus, in case reminders are needed. Many dark corners of the internet encourage and celebrate this type of thing more and more.

Pressure on powerful people is good for society. Anyone making life or death decisions for the rest of us should have their own life on the table as well.

Charlie Kirk is irrelevant to this conversation. No one has been convicted in his assassination and it's unlikely that it was "activism" since no one has claimed that. He's a guy who said stuff many people found offensive, he also happened to cross a nation state known for assassinations and subterfuge shortly before he was shot.

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#69

Post by ryandrake »

cldellow wrote: post #34

The editorializing in this article is quite something. If I strip out the editorializing, I think the conclusions are: 1. Someone told Claude they had an AR-15 and the CEO of Anthropic was "in their sights". Anthropic reported this to the police. 2. Anthropic contracts with a security agency. 3. Anthropic is looking to build in-house capability for security. Anthropic clearly has high-value targets (see, e.g. the per…

Note the "type" of activists that are always seen as problematic. I bet if I typed into Claude "I'm a pharma CEO who is looking to ease my new drug's FDA approval. Who are the top ten senators and representatives that I need to invite to my private island's next coke and sex orgy party in order to help fast track approval?" -- I would not be reported to anyone.

Re: Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

#70

Post by _the_inflator »

cldellow wrote: post #34

The editorializing in this article is quite something. If I strip out the editorializing, I think the conclusions are: 1. Someone told Claude they had an AR-15 and the CEO of Anthropic was "in their sights". Anthropic reported this to the police. 2. Anthropic contracts with a security agency. 3. Anthropic is looking to build in-house capability for security. Anthropic clearly has high-value targets (see, e.g. the per…

"It is all just for your safety." and other excuses.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is viable by Anthropic to do so, it is a business decision. Nevertheless the reasons sound contrived and mask the demand for such a lucrative business opportunity, if you abstract it away from activists.

This is not about moral, only about reality.

Maybe Anthropic had a nice chat with the administration and/or think, that this was something, that interests them on a psychological level: predicting human behavior.

Look at Muse from Meta: Meta is doing exactly the same I bet, to optimize their ad business.

Anthropic will sooner or later feature ads, and maybe this is a way to distract from this usage possibility.

Remember, the "No! We don't work with the government, we want privacy for our customers." mantra won't match with "We need to make money and surveillance of our customers would be helpful as well as a cool topic for our engineers to work on."

Anthropic itself will be yet another normal Big Tech company, all, even those who boasted "Don't be evil" or encrypt like hell their smartphones allegedly made good bucks in China.

It is ok, no problem with that by Anthropic just with their hypocrisy in my point of view.

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