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The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

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Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#121

Post by basch »

foogazi wrote: post #98
basch wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without reading every word of every embedded tweet, a part missing from the conversation is HOW they are strongarming. It isn't in private. It's a public threat in the court of public opinion to apply societal pressure on the company. They are attempting to reshape Anthropic's decision into a tribal one, and hurt the brand's reputation within the tribe unless it capitulates.

> It isn't in private. We don’t know this

We know it s not exclusively in private, because it s very public.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#122

Post by simoncion »

natpalmer1776 wrote: post #105
simoncion wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a third possibility. Anthropic's management desires cover to remove limiters on some of its products for some of its customers. The Pentagon is more than happy to play the bad guy if it means that they get something that's even more useful to them than what they would have gotten otherwise. "We made these compromises because national defense is really super important." has historically proven to be a really e…

When I imagine a world with this scenario being the truth, I am less confused than when I imagine a world with the alternatives. I find this to be a fantastic and historically reliable (for me) heuristic. That being said, I imagine it also factors into internal dialogue that allows those higher up to explain to the boots-on-the-ground researchers that "no you're not working for the military industrial complex, they'r…

While Rationalist techniques can be useful (and their stated objective of "Your brain is bad at thinking carefully. Learn how to make it do better." is a very good one), I'm always cautious when deploying their techniques. The Rats were prone to ascending very, very far up their own assholes... so much so that a huge chunk of the US-based folks got pretty thoroughly captured by lightly disguised 1960's-era Hippie woo and mysticism.

One would think that "Make sure to frequently evaluate whether or not the techniques you're using are actually effective, and adjust your actions if they're not." would be something that member of that group would do automatically as a matter of habit. But, it turns out that many folks shut off their brains when they get to wrap things in jargon as extraneous as it is impenetrable and slap ass-pulled percentages and betting receipts on to the exterior.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#123

Post by godelski »

freejazz wrote: post #115
godelski wrote: post #90

There's a lot of talk about "Future Claude", even Karpathy has mentioned something similar. But does anyone stop to think about how utterly dystopian this is? We are creating a worse version of the Panopticon than was originally designed. A Panopticon that could have entirely devastating consequences. Not only is "the guard" able to see what any given "prisoner" is doing at any time, but they can look into the past.…

Hard to imagine the difference between a dystopian future is whether or not Claude does this one thing as opposed to all the other things it does (completely eviscerates the arts and culture).

Then try reading my comment again but with a little more imagination. There is not "one thing" unless you're trivializing. But then I'll fill I'm for your lack of imagination: hard to imagine the difference between a dystopian future is whether or not Claude creates a dystopian future. Yet that's just "one thing"

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#124

Post by AbstractH24 »

ljm wrote: post #60
emsign wrote: post #3

So the Pentagon is strongarming a company into cooperation? That reminds of how my alcoholic neighbor used to treat his family. It's almost as if someone let a mean drunk be in charge of the Pentagon.

I wouldn't start up a new company in the US knowing that they are going full tyrant like this.

Which country would you pick?

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#125

Post by [deleted] »

simoncion wrote: post #122
natpalmer1776 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I imagine a world with this scenario being the truth, I am less confused than when I imagine a world with the alternatives. I find this to be a fantastic and historically reliable (for me) heuristic. That being said, I imagine it also factors into internal dialogue that allows those higher up to explain to the boots-on-the-ground researchers that "no you're not working for the military industrial complex, they'r…

While Rationalist techniques can be useful (and their stated objective of "Your brain is bad at thinking carefully. Learn how to make it do better." is a very good one), I'm always cautious when deploying their techniques. The Rats were prone to ascending very, very far up their own assholes... so much so that a huge chunk of the US-based folks got pretty thoroughly captured by lightly disguised 1960's-era Hippie woo…

[deleted]

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#126

Post by freejazz »

godelski wrote: post #123
freejazz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to imagine the difference between a dystopian future is whether or not Claude does this one thing as opposed to all the other things it does (completely eviscerates the arts and culture).

Then try reading my comment again but with a little more imagination. There is not "one thing" unless you're trivializing. But then I'll fill I'm for your lack of imagination: hard to imagine the difference between a dystopian future is whether or not Claude creates a dystopian future. Yet that's just "one thing"

If you think my point was really about the number of "things" then it's you that is lacking in imagination, or more likely also reading comprehension. LLMs already stand to decimate the culture, what does it matter after that? Who cares if you live in a panopticon when there is nothing left to enjoy in society?

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#127

Post by [deleted] »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #32
emsign wrote: post #3

So the Pentagon is strongarming a company into cooperation? That reminds of how my alcoholic neighbor used to treat his family. It's almost as if someone let a mean drunk be in charge of the Pentagon.

As if governments throughout history haven't constantly used threats to gain leverage? No need to take a personal shot at the guy in charge when this is SOP throughout the administration.

[deleted]

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#128

Post by quickthrowman »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #32
emsign wrote: post #3

So the Pentagon is strongarming a company into cooperation? That reminds of how my alcoholic neighbor used to treat his family. It's almost as if someone let a mean drunk be in charge of the Pentagon.

As if governments throughout history haven't constantly used threats to gain leverage? No need to take a personal shot at the guy in charge when this is SOP throughout the administration.

Why are you defending an (active) alcoholic former news anchor that has no business in his position?

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#129

Post by Ajedi32 »

padjo wrote: post #111
hungryhobbit wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that's completely unrelated? Look, you can't have a (working, democratic) government where one party can send the other to jail as soon as they get into power. If presidents could go to jail for doing their job, their opposing party would absolutely try to send them there. This would then ultimately handicap the president: anything they do that the opposition can find a legal justification against could land them…

This is a really silly take. The whole reason for separation of powers is so that the executive can be bound by laws created by the legislative as adjudicated by the judiciary. Saying that the people in the executive are above the law undermines this completely.

This doesn't say the executive is above the law, it says you can't prosecute the president for doing his job, just like you can't prosecute judges for their rulings on the bench or members of congress for their votes on the floor.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#130

Post by supern0va »

diydsp wrote: post #62
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #21

Techno futurist: 1. Builds tool extremely capable of mass surveillance and running autonomous warfighting capabilities. 2. Expresses shock — shock — when the Department of War insists on using the tool for mass surveillance and autonomous warfighting systems.

1. The article points out Claude has resisted being trained for that. AI in general could, but Claude can not.

I think the biggest problem is whether Claude could be tricked into doing so. I could see how mass surveillance could be repacked as "summarize my conversations", or autonomous killbots could be playing a video game.
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