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Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#191
post #177
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's phrased just fine. It's not up to Dario to try to make absolute statements about the future.

He’s one of the most influential people when it comes to what future we’ll have. Yes, it’s up to him.

I think he's more pragmatic than that.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#192

Props to Dario and Anthropic for taking a moral stand. A rarity in tech these days.

There is no moral leg to stand on here, he says here in plain english that if they wanted to use CLAUDE to perform mass surveillance on Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, that is perfectly fine.

This is a public note, but directed at the current administration, so reading it as a description of what is or is not moral is completely missing the point. This note is saying (1) we refuse to be used in this way, and (2) we are going to use "mass surveillance of US citizens" as our defensive line because it is at least backed by Constitutional arguments. Those same arguments ought to apply more broadly, but attempts to use them that way have already been trampled on and so would only weaken the arguments as a defense.

If it helps: refusing to tune Claude for domestic surveillance will also enable refusing to do the same for other surveillance, because they can make the honest argument that most things you'd do to improve Claude for any mass surveillance will also assist in domestic mass surveillance.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else would you expect? The military is obviously going to develop the most powerful systems they can. Do you want a tech company to say “the military can never use our stuff for autonomous systems forever, the end”? What if Anthropic ends up developing the safest, most cost effective systems for that purpose?

I'd prefer companies not help the military develop the most powerful weapons possible given we're in the age of WMDs, have already had two devastating world wars and a nuclear arms race that puts humanity under permanent risk.

So would you have preferred the Nazis to develop the most powerful weapons and they win the world war? (which they were trying to do?)

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#194
post #181

Ukraine , Russia , China , actively develop ai systems that kill. Not developing such system by US based company will not change the course of actions.

Yep.

That said, it does impact whether Anthropic can sell to the British [0], German [1], Japanese [2], and Indian [3] government.

Other governments will demand similar terms to the US. Either Anthropic accedes to their terms and gets export controlled by the US or Anthropic somehow uses public pressure to push back against being turned into an American sovereign model.

Realistically, I see no offramp other than the DPA - a similar silent showdown happened in the critical minerals space 6-7 years ago.

[0] - https://www.anthropic.com/news/mou-uk-government

[1] - https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/anthropic/jobs/5115692008

[2] - https://www.anthropic.com/news/opening-our-tokyo-office

[3] - https://www.anthropic.com/news/bengaluru-office-partnerships...

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#195
post #62

I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me: > But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"? Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing > AI-driven domestic mass surveillance And neither denounces partially a…

Unfortunately I think the writing is clearly on the wall. Fully autonomous weapons are coming soon

If they had access to them in Ukraine, both sides would already be using them I expect. Right now jamming of drones is a huge obstacle. One way it's dealt with is to run literal wired drones with massive spools of cable strung out behind them. A fully autonomous drone would be a significant advantage in this environment.

I'm not making a values judgment here, just saying that they will absolutely be used in war as soon as it's feasible to do so. The only exception I could see is if the world managed to come together and sign a treaty explicitly banning the use of autonomous weapons, but it's hard for me to see that happening in the near future.

Edit: come to think of it, you could argue a landmine is a fully autonomous weapon already.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#198

It's not named the Department of War because Congress didn't rename it. Other than that, good on ya.

Less hypocritical than Defense. US has never been on the defense, always offense since it was renamed in 1947.

Often offensive and also often defensive of others.. so if renaming is on the table, it’s probably most apt to call it the Dept of Security since the vast majority of what it does is maintaining the security umbrella that has helped suppress world war since the last one. Of course, facts or opinions on whether it succeeds on the security front depend on which side of the umbrella you’re on.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#199
post #62

I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me: > But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"? Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing > AI-driven domestic mass surveillance And neither denounces partially a…

So AI systems are not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons but they are reliable enough to end all white-collar work in the next 12 months?

Odd.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#200
post #57

This makes me a very happy Claude Max subscriber. Finally, someone of consequence not kissing the ring. I hope this gives others courage to do the same.

They already kissed the ring, just not the asshole. They have a little dignity left.
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