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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#161

Post by jwkpiano1 »

WatchDog wrote: post #156
hamdingers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be surprised how many people haven't heard term until now, it's been in common use in the US for 20+ years. To me the most Orwellian thing is everyone using the newspeak name for the DoD.

After hearing Palmer Luckey's argument for the name change[0], I tend to think it's good change. Some of his arguments: It used to be called the department of war, and it had a better track record with regard to foreign conflict, under that name then it did under the DoD name. Department of war is a more honest name, department of defense is a somewhat newspeak term, although "Department of Peace" would be worse. It'…

The problem with this argument is that the _original_ Department of War is now called the Department of the Army, which existed alongside the Department of the Navy. Besides, it’s a moot point unless Congress actually changes the name.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#162

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

randerson wrote: post #88
jmward01 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and even their two exceptions, only one is on moral grounds. They don't want to provide tools for autonomous killing machines because the technology isn't good enough, yet. Once that 'yet' is passed they will be fine supplying that capability. Anthropic is clearly the better company over OpenAI, but that doesn't mean they are good. 'lesser evil' is the correct term here for sure.

Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk. Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fi…

> Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members.

I guess let the record state that I am deeply morally opposed to automated killing of any kind.

I am sick to my stomach when I really try to put myself in the shoes of the indigenous peoples of Africa who were the first victims of highly automatic weapons, “machine guns” or “Gatling guns”. The asymmetry was barbaric. I do hope that there is a hell, simply that those who made the decision to execute en masse those peoples have a place to rot in internal hellfire.

To even think of modernizing that scene of inhumane depravity with AI is despicable. No, I am deeply opposed to automated killing of any kind.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#163

Post by skybrian »

mempko wrote: post #21

Long time ago I worked for a company that I learned was selling it's software to help target people during the Iraq war. I quit because I cannot support building software that kills people. This is a message to people working for that line of business at Anthropic. You don't have to do it, you can quit. If you are helping this insane administration to conduct war on Iran quit. You don't need to have that kind of bloo…

At a technical level, I don't believe they're specifically working on targeting anyone. They're providing a general-purpose API that Palantir is presumably using to build the target-finding software.

I imagine that's why the implementation got so far along before this blew up. Someone at Anthropic talked with someone at Palantir and they had a "you did what? Did you read the contract terms" moment, and that was after it went into production.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#164

Post by esrauch »

malfist wrote: post #125
_--__--__ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DoW is the opposite of newspeak, it is much more transparent and honest about what that organization is and has been for my entire life

DoW is newspeak. Thats not it's name.

They do a lot more war than defense don't they?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#166

Post by pazimzadeh »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…

also relevant to Ender's Game, which came out 8 months before Real Genius

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#167

Post by jltsiren »

tedd4u wrote: post #102
6thbit wrote: post #22

> Our most important priority right now is making sure that our warfighters and national security experts are not deprived of important tools in the middle of major combat operations. > we had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways we could serve the Department that adhere to our two narrow exceptions, and ways for us to ensure a smooth transition i…

What’s a “warfighter?” Do they come from the “Gulf of America?” We used to call them servicemen or service members. Emphasizing they served the people. I guess that’s too effeminate for our roided up and ironically hyper-insecure Secretary of Defense.

A new term was needed some decades ago. "man" titles have not been politically correct for a while, "member" sounds awkward and bureaucratic. In some other languages, "soldier" can be used for all military personnel, while English ended up with a more narrow meaning.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#169

Post by BryantD »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…

Also in Good Will Hunting, when Will (Matt Damon) delivers a scathing job rejection to the NSA.

1997. The War on Terror has a lot to answer for.

https://youtu.be/tH0bTpwQL7U

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#170

Post by qsera »

martinwright wrote: post #128
qsera wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>refuse to let their systems be used for war.. I don't want wars. But tell me, what would you like your country to do when conflicts arise due to want of natural resources? Would you want your country to just give up that resource your people depend on, like may be 50/50? Do you believe it will always be possible to settle on a solution in a peaceful way that works for everyone?

Your logic here is sound, sure. But don't tell me you can be so naive as to believe that the U.S. military is a defensive mechanism

>But don't tell me you can be so naive as to believe that the U.S. military is a defensive

I am not. Every country is corrupt, and war makes a lot of money for powerful people, but does it justify sabotaging your own existence?

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