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The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

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Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#31

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

mcherm wrote: post #30
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>> willing to designate a US company as essentially a foreign spy agency Can you quote where I said that ?

You wrote: > I'm glad Anthropic is getting a taste of their own medicine. I took that to mean that you support the Pentagon's threat which essentially IS to label Anthropic as a national security threat, simply because they wouldn't give the Pentagon the right to use Anthropic's AI to operate weapons or spy on American citizens.

Big fish tries to use their might to kill off small fish .

Anthropic uses big $$ it to become big fish in the AI pond.

Anthropic just found there are bigger fish in their pond.

I'm glad Anthropic have been reminded of this. THat doesn't mean I endorse the US govt using law to make companies a "national security threat" , although its an extremelt easy path from: monopolistic to -> active "national security threat".

Govt can, and in fact, has a mandate to, go after businesses when those businesses threaten a functioning market. Threatening is certainly part of that arsenal.

That's what anticompetitive rules are all about.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#32

Post by CodingJeebus »

emsign wrote: post #3

So the Pentagon is strongarming a company into cooperation? That reminds of how my alcoholic neighbor used to treat his family. It's almost as if someone let a mean drunk be in charge of the Pentagon.

As if governments throughout history haven't constantly used threats to gain leverage? No need to take a personal shot at the guy in charge when this is SOP throughout the administration.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#33

Post by basch »

emsign wrote: post #3

So the Pentagon is strongarming a company into cooperation? That reminds of how my alcoholic neighbor used to treat his family. It's almost as if someone let a mean drunk be in charge of the Pentagon.

Without reading every word of every embedded tweet, a part missing from the conversation is HOW they are strongarming.

It isn't in private. It's a public threat in the court of public opinion to apply societal pressure on the company. They are attempting to reshape Anthropic's decision into a tribal one, and hurt the brand's reputation within the tribe unless it capitulates.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#34

Post by nickff »

emsign wrote: post #3

So the Pentagon is strongarming a company into cooperation? That reminds of how my alcoholic neighbor used to treat his family. It's almost as if someone let a mean drunk be in charge of the Pentagon.

The whole government 'strong-arms' many of its counter-parties in a variety of situations; this is unfortunately nothing new, and far from an innovation by Hegseth. A more clearly illegal example (because the government was acting as a regulator, not a purchaser) is Operation Choke Point, though there are many others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#35

Post by mattnewton »

colek42 wrote: post #12
vonneumannstan wrote: post #2

Point blank one of the most nakedly evil things the government has ever tried to do. Apparently Anthropic's sticking points were no using the model for autonomous kill orders and no mass surveillance...

The voters and congress tell the military how to use technology, not Anthropic. Shifting the decision to Anthropic takes away power from the citizenship. Edit: The point is, go vote if you don't agree with what the administration is doing. Somebody will sell the DoD whatever they want no matter what Anthropic does.

Sounds like the voters and congress should buy from someone else then if this is what they want?

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#36

Post by Analemma_ »

oceanplexian wrote: post #15

Anthropic cutting off the Pentagon is saying in no uncertain terms that they support allowing the PRC access to frontier military technology but not the US.

Trump gave China a bunch of Blackwell chips and accelerated their frontier AI deployment in exchange for a big payout to his crypto firm from the UAE, an act which would be considered straightforward high treason if we were in normal times with a functioning government.

There is exactly one party in this debate trying to help the PRC get advanced military tech, and it’s not Anthropic.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#37

Post by enoch_r »

colek42 wrote: post #12
vonneumannstan wrote: post #2

Point blank one of the most nakedly evil things the government has ever tried to do. Apparently Anthropic's sticking points were no using the model for autonomous kill orders and no mass surveillance...

The voters and congress tell the military how to use technology, not Anthropic. Shifting the decision to Anthropic takes away power from the citizenship. Edit: The point is, go vote if you don't agree with what the administration is doing. Somebody will sell the DoD whatever they want no matter what Anthropic does.

Say I own a spoon company. The government says "hey, I'd like to buy a million spoons from you!" I say "sure, sounds great." We sign a contract stating that I'll give them 1M spoons and they'll send me $1M.

Then the government comes to me and says "hey, actually, turns out we need 500,000 forks and 300,000 knives and only 200,000 spoons."

I say "no, we are a spoon company. Very passionate about spoons. Producing forks and knives would be an entirely different business, and our contract was for spoons."

The military now threatens to destroy my company unless I give them forks and knives instead of spoons.

You say "the voters and congress tell the military how to use utensils, not SpoonCo. Shifting the decision to SpoonCo takes power away from the citizenship."

The military can sign contracts if they wish! They can decline to sign contracts if they wish!

But private citizens can also choose whether to sign or not sign contracts with the military. Threatening to destroy their business if they don't sign contracts the military likes (or to renegotiate existing contracts in the military's favor) is a huge violation.

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#39

Post by mattnewton »

oceanplexian wrote: post #25
colek42 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voters and congress tell the military how to use technology, not Anthropic. Shifting the decision to Anthropic takes away power from the citizenship. Edit: The point is, go vote if you don't agree with what the administration is doing. Somebody will sell the DoD whatever they want no matter what Anthropic does.

You might want to go look at the laws that were passed in the wake of WWII. The US could trivially nationalize Anthopic if they want to play games with a weapons technology.

This could kill the golden goose. There is a strong argument to be made that Anthropic has a leading model because of the principled people who built it, and I don’t see how they won’t leave, like many did to go to Anthropic from OpenAI and Google.

Forcing those people to make weapons to be used against citizens is nothing like the total war in WW2. Why wouldn’t the pentagon just buy from another LLM supplier?

Re: The Pentagon threatens Anthropic

#40

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

bigyabai wrote: post #24
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #10

I understand that Anthropic has one of the most popular products in the market. But no one, especially the government, should get in bed with them, when anthropic leadership has a track record trying to use their early mover advantace, to effectively create an AI cartel [1] I'm glad Anthropic is getting a taste of their own medicine. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-15/anthro...

I can't grok this comment. Are you pro or anti-cartel?

very much anti cartel

Any company using a huge $$ war chest to shower themselves in regulation, is likely trying to usurp market powers from the public -via congressional bribes- to themselves.

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