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The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

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Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#111

Post by throw__away7391 »

saalweachter wrote: post #58
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #21

I don't have a lot of hope here. When most of the creme de la creme of the billionaire class capitulated to Trump at the beginning of his term, that set the tone for everything that followed IMO. It's astounding to me that so many are willing to see him trample on the Constitution and separation of powers when they'd scream like stuck pigs if any other party attempted it. And that's the way a lot of influential Ameri…

So the cornerstone of one of the most common types of scam, affinity fraud, as well as a cornerstone of salesmanship, is convincing an audience that you're just like them . You have the same likes and dislikes, the same hobbies, the same cultural references, the same beliefs and values and hopes and dreams. And then you use that affinity to manipulate them, to get them to do what you want, to get them to give you mon…

I basically agree here, but I would add that the framing here can sometimes sometimes be better described as “extortion”. Politicians have tremendous power and influence over many industries, I’ve seen the inside of a few situations where the politicians framed themselves as “taking on big business” where behind closed doors they were 100% calling the shots and handing executives directives on what they could or could not say publicly. The companies had no choice but to play along. When I see a big company take exactly the same public position as the current regulatory regime or administration in power, I don’t assume that they necessarily have any choice in the matter.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#112

Post by fcarraldo »

jasongill wrote: post #98
Eggpants wrote: post #52

What’s interesting is Anthropic being singled out here. That either means: 1- OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc have no problem with their products being used to kill people so no need to bully them. 2- These other products are so terrible at the task that the clown shoe wearing SecDef is forced to try to bully Anthropic.

WaPo is reporting that OpenAI and xAI already agreed to the Pentagon's "any lawful use" clause, aka, mass surveillance and fully autonomous killbots. From the WaPo article https://archive.is/yz6JA#selection-435.42-435.355 > Officials say other leading AI firms have gone along with the demand. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, Google and Elon Musk’s xAI have agreed to allow the Pentagon to use their systems for “all lawfu…

OpenAI is usable through Azure for Government up to IL-6.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/azuregov/azure-openai-authori...

Either Anthropic is seen as the clear leader (it certainly is for coding agents) or this is a political stunt to stamp out any opposition to the administration. Or both.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#113

Post by strangattractor »

ACCount37 wrote: post #80
Enginerrrd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it simply does not require much intelligence (relatively speaking) to build something that points a gun at something and pulls a trigger? I could not disagree more. A big part of that is also knowing when NOT to pull the trigger. And it’s much harder than you’d think. If you think full self driving is a difficult task for computers, battlefield operations are an order of magnitude more complex, at least.

We have fully autonomous weapons, and had them for over a century. We call them "landmines". I expect autonomous weapons of the near future to look somewhat similar to that. They get deployed to an area, attack anything that looks remotely like a target there for a given time, then stand down and return to base. That's it. The job of the autonomous weapon platform isn't telling friend from foe - it's disposing of eve…

"Since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, unexploded ordnance (UXO)—including landmines, cluster bombs, and artillery shells—has killed over 40,000 people and injured or maimed more than 60,000 others." - Google AI Overview "How many children were maimed by landmines after the vietnam war"

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#114

Post by LogicFailsMe »

5o1ecist wrote: post #99
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #21

I don't have a lot of hope here. When most of the creme de la creme of the billionaire class capitulated to Trump at the beginning of his term, that set the tone for everything that followed IMO. It's astounding to me that so many are willing to see him trample on the Constitution and separation of powers when they'd scream like stuck pigs if any other party attempted it. And that's the way a lot of influential Ameri…

[flagged]

And who exactly (no not the Illuminati, the mole people, the Tartarian Empire or Atlantis etc) is giving him orders? Names please.

But you're right that the Epstein (guessing Mosad IMO) op had sure ensnared a lot of people who should have known better but I guess they're just like us in the sense that they only have enough blood to run one head at a time. To my knowledge though, Tim Cook, Bezos and Zuckerberg aren't in the Epstein files. So what's their excuse?

However, that still doesn't explain the secret space program to mine adrenochrome from missing kids renditioned to Mars and run from the basement of a Pizza restaurant. Because WTFF? https://www.space.com/37366-mars-slave-colony-alex-jones.htm...

But still, WHO is giving him orders? Or are you just assuming he must be following orders because the alternative that he's genuinely large and in charge is terrifying? That our republic basically mostly rolled over for him in less than one year perhaps even moreso?

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#115

Post by crystal_revenge »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #67
TimorousBestie wrote: post #18

Article doesn’t demonstrate a good understanding of DoW’s relationship with contractors. Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars—well, this is what happens when you make a Faustian bargain. > One option is to invoke the Defense Production Act. . . > Another threat would be to declare Anthropic to be a supply chain risk. . . The first is a wrist-slap that still gets the government what they want; the sec…

There is no "DoW". Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, are named by Congress. Just because the current administration wants to use a different name means nothing ... unless everyone just complies in advance. Will Congress actually rename it? Hard to say, but it doesn't seem very likely.

This is such a silly point to argue over. From 1789-1947 we had a "Department of War", which then merged into "Department of Army" under the newly formed (in 1947) National Military Establishment (NME) which was changed in 1949 to "Department of Defense" because N-M-E sound like "enemy".

It's not like these names are part of some sacred part of American identity, and "defense" has always been laughable as a euphemism. The DoD refers to themselves as the DoW [0] now, so it's completely reasonably to refer to the department as DoW. And of all the places to put your political energy, defending a laughable euphemism of a name that was used because the previous iteration of the name sounded funny seems like a sub-optimal use of that a energy.

0. https://www.war.gov/

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#116

Post by b112 »

bhelkey wrote: post #106
b112 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure? War with Canada is about to break out, and you can't have elections when at war.

Is this sarcasm? The US held elections during World War II [1]. [1] https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-...

I guess that proves elections can't be delayed, right?

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#118

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

My belief is they are terrified of China and this seems evident when you take into account the moves they're making with Venezuela, Iran, and the increased adoption of authoritarian tactics. We're trying to play catch-up with China's rapid rise as a super-power and the AI infrastructure is one of the few major developments we still have control over, for now. I sympathize with Dario, he's stuck in a very bad position on this. We do not want China to operate on this level while we sit back with one hand tied behind our backs. On the other hand, this administration is making extremely poor decisions and arguably causing extensive harm domestically and internationally, so it's a lose-lose situation for Dario really.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#119

Post by MWParkerson »

khalic wrote: post #72

I can't believe how many people take the anthropic statement at face value. You need to concentrate on what they are implicitly acknowledging. They will spy on non us citizens. How philanthropic edit: how about the downvoters give a counterargument instead of trying to bury this comment?

Pathetic but not unexpected that people are willing to tolerate such a use of AI. However, this is the most principled statement on the military use of AI that a frontier model leadership suite has released. It's also full of "china bad" sentiment that's worth picking over, but in a political and economic paradigm that expects & rewards blatant corruption, this statement still stands out.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#120

Post by fcarraldo »

ACCount37 wrote: post #82
jstummbillig wrote: post #59

On the one hand it's fantastic that people are resisting and, if nothing else, raising awareness and buying time. On the other hand, is autonomous war not obviously the endgame, given how quickly capabilities are increasing and that it simply does not require much intelligence (relatively speaking) to build something that points a gun at something and pulls a trigger? It just needs one player to do it, so everyone ha…

It's not that hard. DoD could find a contractor to do it. But Anthropic wants no part of it, and I get why.

Yes - Anthropic _does_ incur business risk if their products are misused and this becomes a scandal. Legally the government may be in the clear to use the product, but that doesn’t mean Anthropic’s business is protected. Moral concerns aside, it’s their prerogative to decide not to take on a customer that may misuse their product in a way that might incur reputational harm.

Or it was their prerogative, until the Trump administration. Now even private companies must bend the knee.

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