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Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
261–270 of 716 posts
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, let me give a specific citation of Elon injecting his personal bias into the output of his tools: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/14/elon-musk... As for the "Elon fingering your amygdala with a ridiculous hypothetical" snark, well, I think the HN crowd in particular understands how the culture wars are just theater to push through billionaires' personal self-centered interests at the expense of…
Your question was “Was there actually a case of a model saying "America's founding father were black women" Whether someone else is injecting different bias is whataboutism. So it seems you are trying to make a different point, but not being clear about it. And your “I think the HN crowd understands…” point is just a “no true Scotsman” fallacy to veil an argument that goes against guidelines. Related to the broader t…
It's not whataboutism, it's suggesting the premise is theatrics and there's ulterior shitty-person motives behind the curtain.
But sure, let's go back to just the first half of my argument... still waiting for a real citation of this actually being a problem rather than people just stating it is because that's what their feelings say because their fav podcaster said so one day in a misleading gotcha hitpiece, which is the exact machinery of the aforementioned culture war theatrics.
You know, the same misused machinery that can now be done at an industrial rate (how many comments here do you think are by real people?) and is the reason for us technologists' general feeling of impending existential dread around this very "hmm AI companies are turning off the safeties" thread...
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#263I used to work at Anthropic. I fully believe that the folks mentioned in the article, like Jared Kaplan, are well-intentioned and concerned about the relationship between safety research and frontier capabilities – not purely profit. That said, I'm not thrilled about this. I joined Anthropic with the impression that the responsible scaling policy was a binding pre-commitment for exactly this scenario: they wouldn't s…
I interviewed at Anthropic last year and their entire "ethics" charade was laughable.
Write essays about AI safety in the application.
An entire interview round dedicated to pretending that you truly only care about AI safety and not the money.
Every employee you talk to forced to pretend that the company is all about philanthropy, effective altruism and saving the world.
In reality it was a mid-level manager interviewing a mid-level engineer (me), both putting on a performance while knowing fully well that we'd do what the bosses told us to do.
And that is exactly what is happening now. The mission has been scrubbed, and the thousands of "ethical" engineers you hired are all silent now that real money is on the line.
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've succinctly identified and communicated a real problem. In your opinion, what is the best approach, if any, to attempt to address it?
> In your opinion, what is the best approach, if any, to attempt to address it? There aren't many options for fighting the tax man, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes". You're only option is to leave the US for somewhere better.
For the ultra-wealthy, leaving the United States is rarely the preferred strategy; instead, they use their immense resources to legally reshape the tax code and utilize complex loopholes. Billionaires like the Koch and Scaife families historically avoided massive estate and gift taxes by creating "charitable lead trusts" and private foundations. This allowed them to pass fortunes down to their heirs tax-free, provided they donated the interest to charities (which they often controlled) for a set period. A powerful approach is to fund political movements to slash taxes for the top brackets. For example, a coalition of eighteen of the wealthiest US families spent nearly half a billion dollars collectively to successfully lobby for the reduction and eventual repeal of the "death tax" (estate tax), saving themselves an estimated $71 billion.
And, of course, in the ancient world, free citizens of Greece and Rome considered direct taxes tyrannical and usually avoided them, leaving such burdens to conquered populations.
So I guess taxes are uncertain, but only for the oligarchy.
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn’t just following orders. This was the government using its might to force a business to do what it wants. This should concern you.
Today’s bingo: 1. Powerful, often exclusionary, populist nationalism centered on cult of a redemptive, “infallible” leader who never admits mistakes. 2. Political power derived from questioning reality, endorsing myth and rage, and promoting lies. 3. Fixation with perceived national decline, humiliation, or victimhood. 4. Oppose any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously harmonious.…
There are Twenty-one Conditions, not 16
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using money as a medium to facilitate exchange of goods and services is not capitalism. Abandoning one of your core principles in the pursuit of money, or more charitably because not doing so means your competitors will make more money and overtake you in the marketplace is an outgrowth of capitalism In the Soviet Union the reasons might have been "to beat the Capitalists", "for the pride of our country" or "Stalin a…
>Though a variant of the last one may well have happened here, and the justification we read is just the one less damaging to everyone involved Hegseth was planning on getting the model via the Defense Production Act or killing Anthropic via supply chain risk classification preventing any other company working with the Pentagon from working with Anthropic. So while it wasn't Siberia, it was about as close as the US c…
This. Anthropic didn't really have a choice, at that point, short of killing its company and closing its doors ahead of time.
"Pentagon officials said the Defense Department is planning to keep using Anthropic's tools, regardless of the company's wishes."
NPR - Hegseth threatens to blacklist Anthropic over 'woke AI' concerns
Clearly the threat to go to Grok was just a bluster, which says volumes about what the admin thinks of Grok vs Claude.
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing a meaningless document can do when the AI is not aligned in the first place.
"alignment" is the computer version for (philosophical not medical) "consciousness", a totally subjective, immeasurable concept.
I think you have a misunderstanding of the term alignment. Really, you could replace "aligned" with "working" and "misaligned" with "broken".
A washing machine has one goal, to wash your clothes. A washing machine that does not wash your clothes is broken.
An AI system has some goal. A target acquisition AI system might be tasked with picking out enemies and friendlies from a camera feed. A system that does so reliably is working (aligned) a system that doesn't is broken (misaligned). There's no moral or philosophical angle necessary if your goal doesn't already include that. Aligned doesn't mean good and misaligned doesn't mean evil.
The problem comes when your goal includes moral, ethical and philosophical judgements.
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#268I used to work at Anthropic. I fully believe that the folks mentioned in the article, like Jared Kaplan, are well-intentioned and concerned about the relationship between safety research and frontier capabilities – not purely profit. That said, I'm not thrilled about this. I joined Anthropic with the impression that the responsible scaling policy was a binding pre-commitment for exactly this scenario: they wouldn't s…
I fully believe that Dario is 100% full of shit and possibly a worse person than Altman. He loves to pontificate like he's the moral avatar of AI but he's still just selling his product as hard as he can.
They are all the same given their motivations - Demis Hassabis is the only one who, to me at least, sounds genuine on stage.
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
> I VERY LARGELY prefer an AI like grok that doesn't pretend and let the onus of interpretation to the user rather than a bunch of anonymous "researchers" that may be equally biased, at the extreme, may tell you that America's founding father were black women Setting aside for a moment that Grok is manipulated and biased to a hilarious extent. ("Elon is world champion at everything, including drinking piss") There is…
This is a very fair answer but missing some points.
I do personally believe that grok is a less biased against too many PC answers but you may disagree.
"All the existing texts on the founding fathers are filled with 250 years of bias, propaganda, and agenda pushing from all sorts of authors."
not sure of the point is tho ? Mine is that gemini was biaised so hard that it was generating diverse founding fathers which is factually untrue.
The fact that history has a pro-american values when written by americans is also true but it has nothing to do really with the argument: if an IA is able to see through such propaganda and provide a balanced view on it as a human would this is enough
In fact, i just asked grok "is the american founding constitution inhernetly good" and it gave me an aswer way more balanced than most american would i believe:
"The U.S. Constitution, drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788, is a foundational document that has shaped American governance and influenced democracies worldwide. Asking if it's "inherently good" (assuming that's what you meant by "inhernetly") invites a philosophical debate: "Inherent" implies something intrinsic and unchanging, independent of context, interpretation, or outcomes. Goodness, in this case, could mean moral, effective, just, or beneficial to society. From a truth-seeking perspective, I'll break this down non-partisanly, drawing on historical facts, strengths, criticisms, and evolving views. Spoiler: It's not inherently anything—it's a human creation with profound virtues but also deep flaws, and its "goodness" depends on how it's applied and amended."
[can't paste everything so here's the conclusion]
"Is It Inherently Good? A Balanced VerdictNo document is "inherently" good or bad—goodness is contextual and subjective. The Constitution isn't divine or eternal; it's a pragmatic compromise by flawed humans (55 delegates, all white men, many slaveowners). It has proven remarkably resilient and improvable, outlasting many governments, but it's not perfect or immune to abuse. Its goodness lies in its capacity for self-correction: 27 amendments have fixed some issues, though others (like wealth inequality or climate inaction) persist due to gridlock.If you're measuring by outcomes, the U.S. has achieved extraordinary things under it, but at great human cost—think Civil War, civil rights struggles, and ongoing divides. Philosophically, as Grok, I'd say tools like this are as good as the people wielding them. If "inherently good" means it embodies universal moral truths, partially yes (liberty, equality under law). But if it means flawless or unbiased, absolutely not.What aspect of the Constitution are you most curious about—its history, specific clauses, or modern reforms? That could help refine this."
So it's definetely seeing through any form of propaganda you desribe
Re: Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because their government is asking for things that shouldn't be asked - again, no regulation, no oversight.
The government is forcing them to change their policy, by definition that is regulation and oversight. Let's say that the government was forcing a company to change their overall right-to-repair or return policy in order to avoid being on a blacklist, would that not be seen as oversight and regulation? Whether the regulation is legitimate or of benefit is a different argument.
The government doesn't seem to be forcing them to do anything. They're saying that doing business with them is contingent upon changing the policy. So, they could simply stop doing business with the government.
Hegseth could come to my house today and tell me that I need to start kicking puppies in order to do business with him, and I could just say no. No coercion happening.