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

anthropic.com

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

#381

Post by mylifeandtimes »

darvid wrote: post #56
pousada wrote: post #41

Department of War is just such a fucking joke title - when has the US stooped so low, I used to believe in you guys as the force of good on this planet smh

I'm 33 years old, would you mind telling me which year you thought this was, force of good stuff? might be before my time genuinely curious, I got nothing

it was before your time.

In WWII, we saved the world from what is now seen as some really evil stuff. Not alone of course, Europe and Russia made huge sacrifices and that's where much of the war was fought. But US arms and blood were the decisive factor, Germany was winning, Japan was winning.

After WWII, the US decided to rebuild the world. We turned our enemies (Germany, Japan) into our close allies.

And the people who did it were really and seriously morally committed to doing what they thought was right. It was about building a country, working together. Not the insane politics of today.

Look, it wasn't all rose-tinted glasses. Bad stuff happened, and McCarthy was worse that what we currently have. And the civil rights movement and all of that. And the stupid wars, Korea, Vietnam, all the smaller police actions. Bad shit was done.

But on balance, the US was seen as the force of good, and the guaranteeor of world peace and the prosperity that allows.

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

#383

Post by jobs_throwaway »

bnr-ais wrote: post #252
lebovic wrote: post #202

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 th…

Anthropic had the largest IP settlement ($1.5 billion) for stolen material and Amodei repeatedly predicted mass unemployment within 6 months due to AI. Without being bothered about it at all. It is a horrible and ruthless company and hearing a presumably rich ex-employee painting a rosy picture does not change anything.

Copyright is bad and its good that AI companies stole the stuff and distilled it into models

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

#384

Post by cmrdporcupine »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #374
jjcm wrote: post #155

This is the strongest statement in the post: > They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels u…

> this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use It’s a flippant move by Hegseth. I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is pushing for this. I doubt Trump is more than cursorily aware. Maybe Miller got in the idiot’s ear, who knows.

It definitely has the aroma of either Bannon or Miller or both.

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

#385

Post by jobs_throwaway »

helaoban wrote: post #106

All of these problems are downstream of the Congress having thoroughly abdicated its powers to the executive. The military should be reigned in at the legislative level, by constraining what it can and cannot do under law. Popular action is the only way to make that happen. Energy directed anywhere else is a waste. Private corporations should never be allowed to dictate how the military acts. Such a thought would be…

> The technology can just be requisitioned, there is nothing a corporation or a private individual can do about that.

I strongly doubt this is true. I think if you gave the US government total control over Anthropic's assets right now, they would utterly fail to reach AGI or develop improved models. I doubt they would be capable even of operating the current gen models at the scale Anthropic does.

> Or the models could be developed internally, after having requisitioned the data centers.

I would bet my life savings the US government never produces a frontier model. Remember when they couldn't even build a proper website for Obamacare?

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

#386

Post by snickerbockers »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #288
quietbritishjim wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't contradictory at all. If I need a particular type of bolt for my fighter jet but I can only get it from a dodgy Chinese company, then that bolt is a supply chain risk (because they could introduce deliberate defects or simply stop producing it) and also clearly important to national security. In fact, it's a supply chain risk because is important to national security.

No, in your example, if the dodgy Chinese company is a supply chain risk due to sabotage, why would they invoke an act to force production of the bolts from the same company for use for national defense preparedness, which would be clearly a national security risk?

The OP specifically mentions this in the context of "systems" (a vague, poorly-defined term) and "classified networks" in which Anthropic products are already present. Without more details on what "systems" these are or the terms of the contracts under which these were produced it's difficult to make a definitive judgement, but broadly speaking it's not a good thing if the government is relying on a product which Anthropic has designed to arbitrarily refuse orders by its own judgement.

I really don't see how anybody could think a private defense contractor should be entitled to countermand the military by leveraging the control it has over products it has already sold. Maybe the terms of their contract entitled them to some discretion over what orders the product will carry out, but there's no such claim in the OP.

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

#389

Post by cmrdporcupine »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #383
bnr-ais wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic had the largest IP settlement ($1.5 billion) for stolen material and Amodei repeatedly predicted mass unemployment within 6 months due to AI. Without being bothered about it at all. It is a horrible and ruthless company and hearing a presumably rich ex-employee painting a rosy picture does not change anything.

Copyright is bad and its good that AI companies stole the stuff and distilled it into models

And then sold it to you for $200 USD a month? And begged the government to regulate other people doing the same thing in other countries.

Fantastic take.

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

#390

Post by jacquesm »

Davidzheng wrote: post #269
calvinmorrison wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mark my words, they will burn at some point. The government can nationalize it at any moment if they desire.

Then maybe Dario will realize that the moral superiority that he bases his advocacy against Chinese open models is naive at best.

Better naive than malicious.
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