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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

#401
post #215
post #46

"as an ai safety company, we only believe in -partially- autonomous weaponry" Ads are coming.

I'll be glad if they could open their platform enough so that it could run on ads and not 200 dollar subscriptions

for sure. If they weren't so self-righteous about not serving ads, it'd be a great revenue stream for them. It'd also align with Dario's seeming obsession with profitability

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

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This contradictory messaging puts to rest any doubt that this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use. Why the hell should companies get to dictate on their own to the government how their product is used?

Every company is free to determine its terms of use. If USG doesn’t like them they should sign a contract with someone else.

Every company is free to state their terms of use, but not all have been upheld when challenged

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

#403

It's not named the Department of War because Congress didn't rename it. Other than that, good on ya.

It's really not the right thing to be bikeshedding. The people calling the shots call themselves the Department of War. No need to die on hills that don't matter.

I wouldn’t call a brief comment on the matter dying on a hill fcs

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

#405
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…

Does the Defense Production Act force employees to continue working at Anthropic?

No. It really only binds the corporation, but it does hold the executives/directors personally responsible for compliance so they’d be under a lot of pressure to figure out how to fix enough leaks in the ship to keep it afloat. Any individual director/executive could quit with little issue, but if they all did in a way that compromised the corporations ability to function, the courts could potentially utilize injunctions/fines/jail time to compel compliance from corporate leaders.

Also there’s probably a way to abuse the Taft-Hawley act beyond current recognition to force the employees to stay by designating any en-masse quitting to be a “strike / walk off / collective action”. The consequences to the individuals for this is unclear - the act really focuses on punishing the union rather than the employees. It would take some very creative maneuvering to do anything beyond denying unemployment benefits and telling the other big AI companies (Google / ChatGPT / xAI) to blacklist them. And probably using any semi-relevant three letter agency to make them regret their choice and deliver a chilling effect to anyone else thinking of leaving (FBI, DHS, IRS, SEC all come to mind).

If the administration could figure out how to nationalize the company (like replace the leadership with ideologically-aligned directors who sell it to the government) then any now-federal-employees declared to be quitting as part of a collective action could be fined $1,000 per day or incarcerated for up to one year.

It’s worth noting that this thesis would get an F grade at any accredited law school. Forcing people to work is a violation of the 13th amendment. But interpretations of the constitution and federal law are very dynamic these days so who knows.

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

#406
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’s a flippant move by Hegseth.

Care to convert this into a prediction?: are you predicting Hegseth will back down?

> I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is pushing for this.

... what does this mean to you? What comes next? As SecDef/SecWar, Hegseth is the head of the Pentagon. He's pushing for this. Something like 2+ million people are under his authority. Do you think they will push back? Stonewall?

One can view Hegseth as unqualified, even a walking publicity stunt while also taking his power seriously.

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

#407

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.

Precisely

Anthropic never explains they are fear-mongering for the incoming mass scale job loss while being the one who is at the full front rushing to realize it.

So make no mistake: it is absolutely a zero sum game between you and Anthropic.

To people like Dario, the elimination of the programmer job, isn’t something to worry, it is a cruel marketing ploy.

They get so much money from Saudi and other gulf countries, maybe this is taking authoritarian money as charity to enrich democracy, you never know

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

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

>It’s already close to losing all meaning.

On the contrary, seeing it take hold before our very eyes gives it more meaning than it ever had in the pages of the history books.

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

#409
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 contradictory messaging puts to rest any doubt that this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use. Why the hell should companies get to dictate on their own to the government how their product is used?

Because technology companies know more about their product's capabilities and limitations than a former Fox News host? And because they know there's a risk of mass civilian casualties if you put an LLM in control of the world's most expensive military equipment?

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

#410
post #24

As a "foreign national", what's the deal with making the distinction between domestic mass surveillance and foreign mass surveillance? Are there no democracies aside from the US? Don't we know since Snowden that if the US wants to do domestic surveillance they'll just ask GCHQ to share their "foreign" surveillance capabilities?

You’re getting many replies, and having scrolled through much of them I do not see one that actually answers your question truthfully. The reason why there is an explicit call out for surveillance on American citizens is because there are unquestionable constitutional protections in place for American citizens on American soil. There is a strong argument that can be made that using AI to mass surveil Americans within…

given that the US likes to declare jurisdiction whenever somebody touches a US dollar, any thoughts on why those same constitutional protections wouldnt follow?
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