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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

#191

Post by [deleted] »

b112 wrote: post #167
mindslight wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not american, and further, whether a department name change is a primary name change, or an alias slapped on, seems pretty low on the list of things to care about.

[deleted]

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#192

Post by b112 »

mindslight wrote: post #175
b112 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not american, and further, whether a department name change is a primary name change, or an alias slapped on, seems pretty low on the list of things to care about.

Is your argument that you're not involved enough in American politics to have responsible opinions about it, even though you're involved enough to comment in the first place? I agree this in isolation is low stakes. The problem is the volume. The memetic assault is everywhere you turn, and propagating it helps the regime. And yes, it's far too easy to do accidentally. That doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate others…

Is your argument that you're not involved enough in American politics to have responsible opinions about it, even though you're involved enough to comment in the first place?

I wonder who or what you're replying to here. Certainly, it has no relation to anything I've said in this thread.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate others calling it out.

Again, who are you replying to with this?

I said "take it easy", not "don't ever bring that up".

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#194

Post by halJordan »

snowwrestler wrote: post #130

Use of the DPA can be litigated, and surely would be. Designation as a supply chain risk surely would be as well. These court cases would produce bad outcomes either way. If the court finds for Anthropic, future DoD leadership will find itself constrained or at least chilled. Or if the court finds for the government, an expansive permissive view of the DPA might encourage future administrations to compel tech compani…

The problem in this case is in fact the best part of our military. The civilian control. This isn't a general or admiral going insane. This is a politically motivated and appropriately assigned civilian. And that's the good part.

The bad part is the failure of the citizenry to elect moral and ethical politicians.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#195

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #84
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There is no "DoW". There’s no Obamacare either. Come on, this is about as pedantic as the “the DoD is not the Pentagon” debate downthread. It’s a colloquial name, and how the executive branch wants everyone to refer to it. This forum isn’t an official document. Move on.

"Obamacare" is a colloquial name.

"Department of War" is not a colloquial name; at best it is an attempt by the administration to create a colloquial name.

Not doing what the executive branch requests is a noble American tradition, and even more noble at the current time.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#196

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

mikkupikku wrote: post #78
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Defense" is a harmful euphemism that misleads the American public, so in this case I'm happy to humor the admins decision.

I agree that, given the actual history of the US military and foreign policy, it is a harmful and misleading euphimism.

It is also, however, the official name of the department, as determined by the US Congress who are empowered to determine such names.

In no case I am happy to humor this administration's decisions, especially when they are illegal/extra-legal/paralegal. If they wanted to actually rename the department, there's a clear process for that, and then perhaps we could "humor" that effort. As it stands, there's nothing here to humor, since there is no decision, only illegal aspiration.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#197

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

rhfjfkfkf wrote: post #125
troyvit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting off-topic here but it was irritating that Anthropic's original announcement called them the Department of War. What was that even signaling?

The signalling in that post is about as clear as it can be. They’re aggressively signalling that they are cooperative, and that they are not being belligerent. They are using the preferred language and much of the framing that the US government would use, to make it as clear as possible what the key points of their disagreement are, by leaning into alignment on everything else This is textbook. People are reading thi…

> When you’re up against an authoritarian regime, that’s willing to abuse all the levers of power against you, you very carefully pick your fights and don’t give them any reason to complain about anything that isn’t essential.

While I am not claiming that you're wrong in this particular instance, or in general, I think it is important to note that there are people who absolutely disagree with you about this, some of whom who have lived in extremely authoritarian regimes. I'm not saying they're right, either, but just highlighting that there is no clearly obvious right/wrong on this point.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#198

Post by derektank »

dirk94018 wrote: post #42
derektank wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t an external directive; Anthropic was founded with the mission of creating safe, reliable AI systems. You wouldn’t see the same people working at the company if the company didn’t stand by its acceptable use policy and other internal standards

Isn't a safe and reliable intelligence an oxymoron?

Nobody knows. That’s what they founded Anthropic to find out

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#199

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #115
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Under US Code, it is the US Congress that names departments. It is not up to an individual officer in the US military, or the administration, to rename them.

I'm expending a fraction of a fraction of 1% on this, and I am in no way defending the euphimism. I am defending the actual written down, legal way in the US government is supposed to operate, which despite its many failings, seems worth defending to me.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#200

Post by CrossVR »

> Dario Amodei published an essay warning about potential dangers from powerful AI — including domestic mass surveillance (which he brands “entirely illegitimate”)

Why is only domestic surveillance by an AI dangerous? I guess Europeans are not worth protecting from the dangers of AI?

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