Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

anthropic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 1001 posts

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

#201

Post by idiotsecant »

tabbott wrote: post #122

An organization character really shows through when their values conflict with their self-interest. It's inspiring to see that Anthropic is capable of taking a principled stand, despite having raised a fortune in venture capital. I don't think a lot of companies would have made this choice. I wish them the very best of luck in weathering the consequences of their courage.

The problem is that this is a decision that costs money. Relying on a system that makes money by doing bad things to do good things out of a sense of morality when a possible outcome is existential risk to the species is a 100% chance of failure on a long enough timeline. We need massive disincentives to bad behavior, but I think that cat is already out of its bag.

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

#202

Post by lebovic »

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values.

Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal that Dario, Jared, and Sam would genuinely burn at the stake before acceding to something that's a) against their values, and b) they think is a net negative in the long term. (Many others, too, they're just well-known.)

That doesn't mean that I always agree with their decisions, and it doesn't mean that Anthropic is a perfect company. Many groups that are driven by ideals have still committed horrible acts.

But I do think that most people who are making the important decisions at Anthropic are well-intentioned, driven by values, and are genuinely motivated by trying to make the transition to powerful AI to go well.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145963#47149908

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

#203

Post by marcus_holmes »

1024core wrote: post #39
flumpcakes wrote: post #20

This is such a depressing read. What is becoming of the USA? Let's hope sanity prevails and the next election cycle can bring in some competent non-grievance based leadership.

[flagged]

It's interesting that in the UK the traditional two-party system is broken, because everyone realises that both of the traditional parties have been bought by rich folk and business interests, only serve their own interests, and can't be trusted any more. The main contenders now are Reform and The Greens, a situation that no-one predicted five years ago.

The same is true in Australia, though there's no charismatic left-wing leader emerging, and the Farage-equivalent is a laughing stock who struggles to be coherent at times. But because of billionaire money, she's still up there on the polls.

The US system makes it much harder for new parties to form, so it's probably going to be factions in the existing parties. And, of course, MAGA is the new faction in the Republican party; effectively a new party itself. So the ground is fertile for a new left-wing faction in the Democrat party to rise.

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

#204

Post by jmyeet »

hackyhacky wrote: post #142
statuslover9000 wrote: post #124

The Sinophobic culture at Anthropic is worrying. Say what you will about authoritarianism, but China’s non-imperialist foreign policy means their economy is less reliant on a military-industrial complex. All they have to do is continue to pump out exponentially more solar panels and the petrodollar will fall, possibly taking our reserve currency status with it. The U.S. seems more likely to start a hot war in the nam…

> China’s non-imperialist foreign policy Really? Is China non-imperialist regarding Taiwan and Tibet?

Taiwan is a matter of perspective. From the Chinese perspective, there was a civil war and the KMT lost. That's also the official position of the US, the EU and most countries in the world. It's called the One China policy. And China seems happy to maintain the status quo and leave the situation unresolved. Is it really imperialism to say that ultimately there will be reunification?

Even if you accept Tibet as imperialist, which is debatable, it was in 1950. You want to compare that to US imperialism, particularly since WW2 [1]? And I say "debatable" here because Tibet had a system that is charitably called "serfdom" where 90% of people couldn't own land but they did have some rights. However, they were the property of their lords and could be gifted or traded, you know, like property. There's another word for that: slavery.

It is 100% factually accurate to say that the People's Republica of China is not imperialist.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

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

#205

Post by jiggawatts »

Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall’s 1947 book Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command stated that only about 10-15% of men would actually take the opportunity to fire directly at exposed enemies. The rest would typically fire in the air to merely scare off the men on the opposing force.

I personally think this is one of the most positive of human traits: we’re almost pathologically unwilling to murder others even on a battlefield with our own lives at stake!

This compulsion to avoid killing others can be trivially trained out of any AI system to make sure that they take 100% of every potential shot, massacre all available targets, and generally act like Murderbots from some Black Mirror episode.

Anyone who participates in any such research is doing work that can only be categorised as the greatest possible evil, tantamount to purposefully designing a T800 Terminator after having watched the movies.

If anyone here on HN reading this happens to be working at one of the big AI shops and you’re even tangentially involved in any such military AI project — even just cabling the servers or whatever — I figuratively spit in your eye in disgust. You deserve far, far worse.

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

#206

Post by epistasis »

fluidcruft wrote: post #120
alangibson wrote: post #4

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

It's really not the right thing to be bikeshedding. The people calling the shots call themselves the Department of War. No need to die on hills that don't matter.

It's actually a good thing to point out, because it shows that those people are out of control and exceeding their authority, and need to be reined in.

No need to die on the hill, but point out that there's a consistent pattern of lawless power-grabbing.

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

#207

Post by cwillu »

nutjob2 wrote: post #180
statuslover9000 wrote: post #124

The Sinophobic culture at Anthropic is worrying. Say what you will about authoritarianism, but China’s non-imperialist foreign policy means their economy is less reliant on a military-industrial complex. All they have to do is continue to pump out exponentially more solar panels and the petrodollar will fall, possibly taking our reserve currency status with it. The U.S. seems more likely to start a hot war in the nam…

> China’s non-imperialist foreign policy This is the China that is not only threatening to invade Taiwan but doing live fire exercises around the island and threatening and attempting to coerce Japan for suggesting saying it will go to its defense. Your comment is ridiculous. It reads like satire.

It wasn't that long ago that Taiwan claimed to be the legitimate government of China; given that China still maintains the reverse claim, it's not outrageous that it would consider an outside country's defense to be interference in an internal matter.

Whether or not that claim is legitimate, it is consistent with the concept of china having a non-imperialist foreign policy, and claims regarding that need to look elsewhere for supporting evidence.

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

#208

Post by serf »

jamesmcq wrote: post #199
qaid wrote: 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.

do you really need to be told there is a difference in 'magnitude of importance' between the decision to send out an office memo and the decision to strike a building with ordinance?

a lot of white collar jobs see no decision more important than a few hours of revenue. that's the difference: you can afford to fuck up in that environment.

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

#209

Post by gedy »

jamesmcq wrote: post #199
qaid wrote: 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.

Shh! there's a lot of money riding on this bet, ahem.

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

#210

Post by Fricken »

danbrooks wrote: post #14

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

We knew long before AI was a twinkle in Amodel's eye that if it were to be built, then it would be co-opted by thugs.

Anthropic's statement is little more than pageantry from the knowing and willing creators of a monster.

Post reply on HN