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Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

anthropic.com

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Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#251

Post by jrflowers »

lebovic wrote: post #235
19123127 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they work with Palantir then, which is the integrator in the DoD? It does not take a genius to figure out where this was going. I don't know why a personal testimony to the effect that "these are the good guys" needs to be at the top of every Anthropic thread. With respect to astroturfing and stealth marketing they are clearly the bad guys.

Others have addressed the first half of your comment, so I'll focus on the astroturfing claim. While I've talked a lot about Anthropic this week, if I was astroturfing for a positive image, I'd be very bad at it [1][2][3]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150170 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47163143 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47174814

It doesn’t seem like anybody has addressed “If they are the good guys with principles why did they work with Palantir?”

There’s a comment that’s sort of handwaving and saying “because America”, but I would imagine that someone with direct knowledge of the people involved would have something more substantive than “thems the breaks” when it comes to working with Palantir

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#252

Post by cmxch »

verdverm wrote: post #40
fzeroracer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Trump admin so chooses, they could absolutely obliterate Anthropic in an instant. They don't really care about tricky things like 'legality' or 'the court of law', they could just force everyone to stop interacting with them, raid their offices and steal all their shit. Perhaps they should've found their spine a year earlier; right now their only hope is that the admin isn't stupid enough to crash the propped-…

The Epstein administration has a very poor success record in court, I would expect Anthropic to win on vindictive prosecution or similar.

And the government will win when they strip clearances and ignore said courts.

Anthropic will then find out that you don’t oppose a hyperpower - the United States.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#253

Post by oefrha »

19123127 wrote: post #172
lebovic wrote: post #94

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about Anthropic's first response and the RSP update [1][2]. I think many people on HN have a cynical reaction to Anthropic's actions due to of their own lived experiences with tech companies. Sometimes, that holds: my part of the company looked like Meta or Stripe, and it's hard not to regress to the mean as you scale. But not every patt…

Why did they work with Palantir then, which is the integrator in the DoD? It does not take a genius to figure out where this was going. I don't know why a personal testimony to the effect that "these are the good guys" needs to be at the top of every Anthropic thread. With respect to astroturfing and stealth marketing they are clearly the bad guys.

They are pretty clear about this:

> the mass domestic surveillance of Americans

This they say they don’t like. The qualifiers tell you they’re totally fine with mass surveillance of Palestinians, or anyone else really, otherwise they could have said “mass surveillance”.

> fully autonomous weapons

And they’re pretty obviously fine with killing machines using their AI as long as they’re not fully autonomous (at the moment, they say the tech is not there yet).

All things considered they’re still a bit better than their competitors, I suppose.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#254

Post by 8note »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #205
8note wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whats going on round tectoria/viatec nowadays? im looking to go buy a house there next

I'm out of the loop, but the last local tech job I had was with instant domains inc. That was great. These days I'm doing marine/geo science work with an NGO and I don't hear much about the local scene. A lot of the old players are still around, but there must be something new and interesting happening. A coworker mentioned there's an autonomous marine sensing startup right in the downtown area. I want to look into t…

oh, i think a friend might work there if theyre partnering with uvic at all.

generally okalands/fernwood, though ive been eyeing some spots on the gorge

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#255

Post by dom2 »

politician wrote: post #247
jeremyjh wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demands are not only unreasonable they are in violation of the contract the DoD signed. Do you really think LLMs should be used in autonomous weapons systems? Do you think they government should use them in mass domestic surveillance? That is reasonable?

Are you an American? Do you understand that your safe easy life depends on a mostly autonomous nuclear deterrence capability maintained by the military you oppose? Deeply think about why you still have right to free speech, and what it takes to sustain those rights.

"safe easy life" != "free speech"

but even if it did, the nuclear bit is a bold claim, especially when one of the most famous nuclear escalation in the u.s. was resolved by cooler heads in charge going around traditional war hawks and negotiating instead.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#256

Post by michaelhoney »

netinstructions wrote: post #83

This is kind of crazy. Instead of just cancelling a mutually-agreed upon contract where Anthropic refused to bow to sudden new demands, the Dept of Defense went straight to the nuclear option: threatening to label an American tech company as a "supply chain risk" which is a heavy-handed tactic usually reserved for foreign adversaries (think Huawei or DJI). It's also incoherent that the DoD/DoW was threatening to invo…

It is indeed kind of crazy. That's because the current US administration is composed of people whose sole qualification is being able to work for Donald Trump. Being competent, rational or ethical is career-limiting.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#257

Post by heroh »

mech422 wrote: post #250
ajam1507 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, in this instance, it does seem that Anthropic is walking away from money. The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in court, and the financial fallout from losing the government contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from consumers. Not to mention that giving in would mean they lose lots of their employees who would refuse to work under those terms. In this case, the principles are l…

The consumer goodwill is working then - it pushed me to upgrade my plan on march 1st... (do they bill on rolling 30 day cycle ? or calendar-month to calendar-month?)

It’s not rolling 30 days. Lost 2 days of use by subscribing in February.

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#258

Post by Stratoscope »

ajam1507 wrote: post #227
lich_king wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My lived experience with tech companies is that principles are easy when they're free - i.e., when you're telling others what to do, or taking principled stances when a competitor is not breathing down your neck. So, with all respect, when someone tells me that the people they worked with were well-intentioned and driven by values, I take it with a grain of salt. Been there, said the same things, and then when the co…

> However, in this instance, it does seem that Anthropic is walking away from money. The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in court, and the financial fallout from losing the government contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from consumers. Not to mention that giving in would mean they lose lots of their employees who would refuse to work under those terms. In this case, the principles are l…

> ...the financial fallout from losing the government contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from consumers.

In fact, a friend heard about this and immediately signed up for a $200/year Claude Pro plan. This is someone who has been only a very occasional user of ChatGPT and never used Claude before.

I told my friend "You could just sign up for the free plan and upgrade after you try it out."

"No, I want to send them this tangible message of support right now!"

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#259

Post by koshergweilo »

jakeydus wrote: post #79
soared wrote: post #9

Is this the first company to actually face to face stand up to the current administration?

Costco has been. When every other major company was scuttling their DEI initiatives Costco doubled down. Doesn’t seem to have impacted them yet.

Costco also actually sued the Trump administration over the Tariffs, probably the largest and most popular to do so

Re: Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

#260

Post by aoeusnth1 »

ajam1507 wrote: post #227
lich_king wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My lived experience with tech companies is that principles are easy when they're free - i.e., when you're telling others what to do, or taking principled stances when a competitor is not breathing down your neck. So, with all respect, when someone tells me that the people they worked with were well-intentioned and driven by values, I take it with a grain of salt. Been there, said the same things, and then when the co…

> However, in this instance, it does seem that Anthropic is walking away from money. The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in court, and the financial fallout from losing the government contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from consumers. Not to mention that giving in would mean they lose lots of their employees who would refuse to work under those terms. In this case, the principles are l…

Unclear how much damage the designation will do to their dealmaking ability in the meantime. How long will it take for the court to reverse order?
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