Yeah it is. The Military has put itself in the position of arguing for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. In what way can that be spun as a positive.
They are arguing to do things that shouldn't be allowed anyway.
The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
131–140 of 247 posts
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
The executives at these huge corporations already know that they can stand up to the Trump administration, and that it will fold immediately. "TACO" is printed in the Wall St. Journal. They willingly don't, because they know that they can use the administration to cement their market power. The surveillance state being built is one where would-be competitors, labor, well-meaning reformists, can be crushed on a whim f…
If that is the bet they are placing, it is a bet they will lose. The power and capabilities of US corporations does not rest solely on those corporations, and as the wealth, influence and power of the USA undergoes "a massive contraction", they will find themselves similarly degraded. They might be the big fish in the big pond, but only because everyone knows there's a bigger fish (the US government). Once other coun…
Of course! I think at some level the people at the top know that this American capitalism is not competitive. The last 5 years or so have been basically the whole country realizing that our system is not competitive. And, the last 1-2 years have been collectively, the world re-calibrating on this fact.
The monopolists don't care though. The power is too intoxicating.
I mean, listen to discussions here. "What's your moat?" -- that's how American capitalists think. Not "What value does your company provide to the customer", but what extra force, beyond simple-minded fair market competition, are you leveraging, to ensnare the customer. The game is to ensure that customers cannot choose another business over yours on its merits. That works in the short term but it's extractive. Eventually, the parasite must stop sucking blood for the host to survive.
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> untrustworthy the current DOD leadership is as as customer. Less than a year left on this clock.
That seems quite optimistic. Or am I just that pessimistic?
No, you are not overly pessimistic.
Trump was impeached before and nothing happened. He can continue to ignore congress. I wouldn't be surprised if at this point he abolishes congress, and even jokes at a press conference saying "I am the Senate".
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#134I 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…
> many are willing to see him trample
there is little surprising about it
Trump is pushing in the direction of an Oligarchie, billionaires would be the future oligarchs.
So even iff a billionaire is no-okay with this development, if they stick out they
- will lose their status/money iff Trump wins long term
- will make enemies with many other billionaires, but a core trend of billionaires is taking advantage of connections to other powerful people
- will be the prime target to make and example of
So there is a high risk for sticking out. At the same time "mostly passively tagging along" will at worst make them oligarchs. At the same time they are used to crossing ethical boundaries to maximize profits. *This is just another form of that.*
In general its pretty much non-viable to go from sub/barely millionaire to billionaire by keeping to law, moral and ethics.
And it's not a secret either that any extreme concentrations of power or money are fundamental thread of _any_ democratic state of law, the US is no exception. The US has been warned that their system is very prone to populist take over and their checks and balances are quite brittle since _decades_. (At least since end of WW2 when people when people analyzed how Hitler took over post-WW1 Germany and wondered if the US could suffer a similar fate. And instead of improving the robustness, the general response was "nonsense, this is the US". Then after 9/11 thinks got worse, warnings that this can lead to a disaster where also many, but actions where none. And then in recent decades the US pushed in favor of monopolies instead of a (actual, practical) free market(1) to project more power internationally, and things got even worse.
(1): Monopolies and a (actual, practical) free Market are fundamentally incompatible. It also is kinda obvious why once you put away decades of deregulation propaganda.
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no such thing. That's a fantasy term used by deluded people to signal a particular virtue.
I keep seeing DOW everywhere, and honestly had no idea it wasn't a legal namechange yet (or ever). There's even a webpage for it. So cut the guy some slack. No one knows wtf is actually going on these days.
With a malevolent agent in the bully pulpit deliberately swamping the American zeitgeist with hostile nonsense ("flood the zone with shit"), it has become every American's duty to be on guard to avoid propagating the regime's bullshit. We are indeed at war, an information war of the US elites against We The People. So buck up.
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> DOD *DOW
There is no such thing. That's a fantasy term used by deluded people to signal a particular virtue.
Also by the people that just work there(, man).
I mean, as dumb as it is, there is a certain musicality to hearing someone with a southern accent sardonically call it the dee-oh-dubya.
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#137My 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…
Nationalize xai then? the owner is rich enough and can find a new pet project
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#138NDAA (The "Huawei Rule") is for cases when a foreign entity has infiltrated or taken over the company in question.
But DOD wants to use Anthropic so is really confirming that there is no foreign entity issues. They want to use it.
So to use NDAA (The "Huawei Rule"), is nakedly false and being used as a punishment.
Which if allowed to happen, could be used against any US Corporation to enforce compliance with the regime..
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#139My read of this interaction is Dario is calling out Hegseths' bluff. A bluff the latter didn't even know he was blundering into because Hegseth is an idiot. SecDef invoking the DPA against Anthropic likely trashes the AI fundraising market, at least for a spell. That's why OpenAI is wading into the fight [1]. Given the Dow is sitting on a rising souffle of AI expectations, that knocks it out as well. And if there is…
The entire administration has been operating on empty threats (see Brendan Carr's FCC speech policing). But most companies don't call them out on it, they just roll over
Just imagine if the threats were to improve worker wages and conditions. Companies are showing that they are paper tigers. We will remember that. Looking forward to a future AOC or some other dem soc administration to just try to fight for the common man for once.
Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> fully autonomous killbots I keep hearing this but it should be plainly obvious to everyone (at least here) that an LLM is not the right AI for this use case. That's like trying to use chatgpt for an airplane autopilot, it doesn't make sense. Other ML models may but not an LLM. Why does the "autonomous killbot" thing keep getting brought up when discussing Anthropic and other llm providers? For reference, "autonomou…
It wouldn't make sense to have the LLM try to do the target recognition, trajectory planning, or motor control. It might make sense to have the LLM at a higher level handling monitoring of systems and coordination with other instances, to provide more flexibility to react to novel situations than rules bases systems.