This is something they've been working on "in recent months". The Pentagon thing was today . This cannot have been caused by that, unless they've also invented time travel.
9 days ago: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/15/claude-pentagon-anthropic-c... And I suspect that was not the first time the topic was discussed.
Definitely not the first time. Wall Street Journal reported it back on Jan 29:
I 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 hope they're willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. that's about as naive as it can be. if they have any values left at all (which I hope they have) them not being at the table with labs which don't have any left is much worse than them being there and having a chance to influence at least with the leftovers. that said, of course money > all else.
I don't hold the belief that it's always better to have influence in a group where you don't trust leadership – in this case, those who decide at the metaphorical table – vs. trying to affect change through a different avenue.
It's probably naive, but it's also the reasoning that drove many early employees to Anthropic. Maybe the reasoning holds at smaller scales but breaks down when operating as a larger actor (e.g. as a single person or startup vs. a large company).
The US technically even has laws that that were supposed to do that still on the books. A particular problem was a very broken decision by the US Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [1] that opened too large of a barn door that the US has been reeling from ever since. That trial argued that companies were individuals/people and that money was the "free speech" of companies and shouldn't ev…
There have been some fairly longstanding judicial decisions overturned recently, although I know the reasons are not in alignment with the decision you mention, it does mean there is hope for such change. So maybe it's actually far less work than considered. Maybe, attacking the decision with a modern eye is helpful.
Citizens United was a 2010 decision. Several of the judges on that case are still sitting judges in the Supreme Court. Since then one of the Congressional oversight decisions on vetting replacements for Supreme Court judges has been whether or not they (at least claim to) agree with the Citizens United decision.
The decision was made in the modern eye, in my lifetime. (The country needed modern Campaign Finance Reform before that point as well, but that decision marks an inflection point from Campaign Finance Reform feeling possible through normal means and court decisions to nearly impossible to overturn in our lifetimes.)
There have been some fairly longstanding judicial decisions overturned recently, although I know the reasons are not in alignment with the decision you mention, it does mean there is hope for such change. So maybe it's actually far less work than considered. Maybe, attacking the decision with a modern eye is helpful.
Citizens United was a 2010 decision. Several of the judges on that case are still sitting judges in the Supreme Court. Since then one of the Congressional oversight decisions on vetting replacements for Supreme Court judges has been whether or not they (at least claim to) agree with the Citizens United decision. The decision was made in the modern eye, in my lifetime. (The country needed modern Campaign Finance Refor…
I agree the US needed reform well before then, that's why I thought it was more historical. Unfortunate.
Of course, but that is incoherent. Regulation and oversight is government.
No, it is a famously coherent concept over millenia. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? "Who will guard the guards themselves?" or "Who will watch the watchmen?" >>A Latin phrase found in the Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348), a work of the 1st–2nd century Roman poet Juvenal. It may be translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?" or "Who will watch the watchmen?". ... The phrase, as it is normally quoted in Lat…
Alas, historically speaking, most governments have been tyrannies. In recent decades, some of them have been less so, or slightly more representative or transparent. I think in Switzerland they go to referendums often. Beyond that, once you vote for a party due an issue you deeply care about, they get to do whatever they want day to day, without citizens having a regular recourse to stop them. Yes people can go to the streets and fight the police that defends the government. But there's not a constitutional mechanism which is "citizen can push this button to override the senate and/or veto what the president wants" or "all security forces are subordinated first and foremost to citizen consensus on the area where they operate".
Google adopted "Don't be evil" shortly after founding and held onto it for about 15 years before Alphabet quietly dropped it in 2015. (Google the subsidiary technically kept it until 2018).
Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy, the hard commitment to never train a model unless safety measures were guaranteed adequate in advance, lasted roughly 2.5 years (Sept 2023 to Feb 2026).
The half-life of idealism in AI is compressing fast. Google at least had the excuse of gradualism over a decade and a half.
Fascinating. I've read 5 posts about this and they're all either "anthropic is dropping their ethics" or "anthropic is fighting the facists" - and whether due to echo chamber or other perhaps more nefarious dealings (some of which I cannot posit due to forum rules) the posts below all of them are more or less in accord with one another which is a rarity for political discourse on HN.
Yes, this. It's unfortunate that anthropic dropped this and it's also exactly how the system is supposed to work. Companies don't regulate themselves, the government regulates the companies. Now, you may notice that the government is also choosing not to regulate these companies...which is another matter altogether.
There is plenty of precedent that companies are expected to regulate themselves. If you are in the US and perform an engineering role without a license or without working under someone with a license, it’s because of an “industrial exemption.” The premise is that companies have enough standards and processes in place to mitigate that risk. However, there is also plenty of evidence that this setup may no longer work.…
The entire system you just described is government regulation.
> “We felt that it wouldn't actually help anyone for us to stop training AI models,” How magnanimous! They are only thinking of others, you see. They are rejecting their safety pledge for you . > “We didn't really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.” Oops, said the quiet part out loud that it’s all about money. “I mean, if al…
they only care about winning To be fair, this is true in nearly all industries and for nearly all companies. Almost everyone is chasing money and monopoly. Not that it makes it right, just pointing out it isn’t unique or even interesting about the AI companies
Of course, but Anthropic is particularly insufferable in this respect.
Yes, this. It's unfortunate that anthropic dropped this and it's also exactly how the system is supposed to work. Companies don't regulate themselves, the government regulates the companies. Now, you may notice that the government is also choosing not to regulate these companies...which is another matter altogether.
> anthropic dropped this and it's also exactly how the system is supposed to work. Companies don't regulate themselves, the government regulates the companies. In this case, it's exactly how it's NOT supposed to work because there's no government regulation concerning the issue. It would be bad looks to have regulation that mandates LESS safety thus the issue was forced on commercial grounds. I called it yesterday, t…
> because there's no government regulation concerning the issue