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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

#491

Post by SecretDreams »

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…

> Many groups that are driven by ideals have still committed horrible acts.

Sometimes, it's even a very odd prerequisite.

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

#492

Post by gaigalas »

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…

I'm suspicious of public displays of enheartening behavior.

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

#493

Post by kmaitreys »

lebovic wrote: post #266
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.

It's enheartening to see someone make a decision in this context that's driven by values rather than revenue, regardless of whether I agree. I dissented while I was there, had millions in equity on the line, and left without it.

Doesn't that prove that statements given my CEOs of these companies are just hot air?

What is enheartening about hearing a liar who makes provocative statements all the time, make another one?

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

#494

Post by noduerme »

This is at best a superficial attempt to show that Anthropic objects to what is already in play.

Personally, I'd rather live in a country which didn't use AI to supplant either its intelligence or its war fighting apparatus, which is what is bound to happen once it's in the door. If enemies use AI for theirs, so much the better. Let them deal with the security holes it opens and the brain-drain it precipitates. I'm concerned about AI being abused for the two use cases he highlights, but I'm more concerned that the velocity at which it's being adopted to sift and collate classified information is way ahead of its ability to secure that information (forget about whether it makes good or bad decisions). It's almost inconceivable that the Pentagon would move so quickly to introduce a totally unknown entity with totally unknown security risks into the heart of our national security. That should be the case against rapid adoption made by any peddler of LLMs who claims to be honest, to thwart the idiots in the administration who think they want this technology they can't comprehend inside our most sensitive systems.

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

#495

Post by SecretDreams »

txrx0000 wrote: post #435
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…

> I have strong signal that Dario, Jared, and Sam would genuinely burn at the stake before acceding to something that's a) against their values, and b) they think is a net negative in the long term. (Many others, too, they're just well-known.) I very much doubt it judging by their actions, but let's assume that's cognitive dissonance and engage for a minute. What are those values that you're defending? Which one of t…

How do you figure open sourcing everything eliminates risk? This makes visibility better for honest actors. But if a nefarious actor forks something privately and has resources, you can end up back in hell.

I don't think we can bank on all of humanity acting in humanity's best interests right now.

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

#496

Post by michaelhoney »

taurath wrote: post #439
neom wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had so much abuse thrown at me on here for saying this very thing over the last few years. I used to be friends with Jack back in the day, before this AI stuff even all kicked off, once you know who people really are inside, it's easy to know how they will act when the going gets rough. I'm glad they are doing the right thing, but I'm not at all surprised, nor should anyone be. Personally I believe they would go…

> it's easy to know how they will act when the going gets rough Even if you went to burning man and your souls bonded, you only know a person at a particular point in time - people's traits flanderize, they change, they emphasize different values, they develop different incentives or commitments. I've watched very morally certain people fall to mania or deep cynicism over the last 10 years as the pillars of society s…

"people's traits flanderize": nice

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

#497

Post by ninjagoo »

ccleve wrote: post #472

It's not clear to me whether Anthropic's limitations are technical or merely contractual. Is Anthropic actually putting the limitations in their prompts, so that the model would refuse to answer a question on how to do certain things? If so, that's a major problem. If the military is using it in some mission critical way, they can't be fighting the model to get something done. No such limitations would ever be accept…

> If the military is using it in some mission critical way, they can't be fighting the model to get something done. No such limitations would ever be acceptable.

You'd be surprised at what is considered acceptable. For example, being unable to repair your own equipment in battle is considered acceptable by decision-makers who accepted the restrictions.

https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-...

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

#498

Post by SecretDreams »

lebovic wrote: post #266
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.

It's enheartening to see someone make a decision in this context that's driven by values rather than revenue, regardless of whether I agree. I dissented while I was there, had millions in equity on the line, and left without it.

> I dissented while I was there, had millions in equity on the line, and left without it.

Is this a reflection of your morality, or that you already had sufficient funds that you could pass on the extra money to maintain a level of morality you're happy with?

Not everyone has the luxury to do the latter. And it's in those situations that our true morality, as measured against our basic needs, comes out.

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

#499

Post by TOMDM »

txrx0000 wrote: post #435
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…

> I have strong signal that Dario, Jared, and Sam would genuinely burn at the stake before acceding to something that's a) against their values, and b) they think is a net negative in the long term. (Many others, too, they're just well-known.) I very much doubt it judging by their actions, but let's assume that's cognitive dissonance and engage for a minute. What are those values that you're defending? Which one of t…

Anthropic doesn't get to make that call though, if they tried the result would actually be:

8 AIs running on 8 machines each with 10 million GPUs

AND

2 million AIs running on 2 million machines, each with 10 GPU's

If every lab joined them, we can get to a distributed scenario, but it's a coordination problem where if you take a principled stance without actually forcing the coordination you end up in the worst of both worlds, not closer to the better one.

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

#500

Post by jsnell »

snickerbockers wrote: post #400
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…

>I's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. I'm concerned that the context of the OP implies that they're making this declaration after they've already sold products. It specifically mentions already having products in classified networks. This is the sort of thing that they should have made clear before that happened. It's admirable (n…

Where are you getting that from?

The article is crystal clear that these uses are not permitted by the current or any past contract, and the DoW wants to remove those exceptions.

> Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now

It also links to DoW's official memo from January 9th that confirms that DoW is changing their contract language going forwards to remove restrictions. A pretty clear indication that the current language has some.

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