I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#51

Post by propagandist » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

ang_cire wrote: post #43

The author is naive. > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we’re in a race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It’s because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don’t want the winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company or a private c…

> go off about how we're such a better country that believes in freedom and goodness Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably. Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago. Even if America fails, I’d argue a global republic is a brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.

As much a republic as Rome was under Caligula.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#52

Post by BoredPositron » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

ang_cire wrote: post #43

The author is naive. > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we’re in a race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It’s because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don’t want the winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company or a private c…

> go off about how we're such a better country that believes in freedom and goodness Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably. Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago. Even if America fails, I’d argue a global republic is a brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.

A republic without the rule of law is not a republic anymore.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#53

Post by ang_cire » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

ang_cire wrote: post #43

The author is naive. > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we’re in a race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It’s because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don’t want the winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company or a private c…

> go off about how we're such a better country that believes in freedom and goodness Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably. Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago. Even if America fails, I’d argue a global republic is a brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.

The real lie here is that there's an ethical superpower.

Just like being a billionaire (or, super-wealther, if you will), you don't get to be a superpower by doing good things.

China and the US can both be bad, and they're both going to use AI for mass internal and external surveillance and weapon targeting.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

awesome_dude wrote: post #38

armchairhacker wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're AI tells. No human would write about how "corporate friction" "introduces friction at the infrastructure layer", except maybe someone who's trying to use big words to sound smart, because it barely makes sense (what "friction"? "Infrastructure layer", what are the other layers?)

AI didn't invent the terms, they were a part of the training data given to it. The real tell is that you've not been in the group of people that use these terms frequently enough for you to think they're normal. It's like the emdash alarmism, AI never invented emdash, nor did it invent using it frequently. Its training was full of examples, so many that AI picked up using it frequently.

> like the emdash alarmism, AI never invented emdash, nor did it invent using it frequently. Its training was full of examples, so many that AI picked up using it frequently

Look at my comment history. I emdash. But I adapted by removing the spaces around them—AI hasn’t similarly adapted.

Most comments on HN with emdashes aren’t slop. But if it starts getting into Wernicke word-salad territory and there are emdashes? With spaces? At that point, it’s fair to flag.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#55

Post by rakovsky89 » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

ang_cire wrote: post #43

The author is naive. > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we’re in a race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It’s because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don’t want the winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company or a private c…

[dead]

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#56

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

ang_cire wrote: post #53

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> go off about how we're such a better country that believes in freedom and goodness Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably. Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago. Even if America fails, I’d argue a global republic is a brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.

The real lie here is that there's an ethical superpower. Just like being a billionaire (or, super-wealther, if you will), you don't get to be a superpower by doing good things. China and the US can both be bad, and they're both going to use AI for mass internal and external surveillance and weapon targeting.

> real lie here is that there's an ethical superpower

It’s a lie in the way cats are round is a lie—actually a lie, but one nobody brought up.

I don’t think Dwarkesh is arguing for global American hegemony. Just that if AI becomes dominant, having AIs embedded with American cultural values, broadly, is probably better than having ones seeded with Xi Jinping thought.

> China and the US can both be bad, and they're both going to use AI for mass internal and external surveillance and weapon targeting

Agree. But I don’t think any Chinese AI companies get to sue the CCP over it.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#57

Post by kleebeesh » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

throwa356262 wrote: post #22

armitron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dwarkesh is your run-of-the-mill vapid influencer idiot. Fridman on the other hand, when in the presence of greatness, knows to STFU and listen.

I have been told the Fridmans association with MIT is mostly a lie. Not sure if this is true, maybe someone who went to MIT around the same time can shed some light on this?

I'm a random dude on the Internet, but my partner completed her PhD at MIT. While there I knew and knew of a few PhD grads who worked at MIT in some non-tenure-track role (postdoc, staff researcher, etc). Typically for a couple years and then they get a better-paying or more permanent job. But several remained "affiliated" in some way. They kept their MIT website/email, some in academia continued to collaborate to some extent. Things like that. But AFAIK they weren't getting a paycheck from MIT. And it's somewhere between neat and genuinely professionally valuable to be affiliated w/ a prestigious university, so I don't blame them for claiming affiliation. My best guess is he's "affiliated" in a similar way.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#58

Post by margalabargala » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

ang_cire wrote: post #43

The author is naive. > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we’re in a race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It’s because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don’t want the winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company or a private c…

> go off about how we're such a better country that believes in freedom and goodness Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably. Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago. Even if America fails, I’d argue a global republic is a brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.

Add to that all the military posturing over Taiwan and it's clear that it's not "China doesn't do what the US does", it's "China hasn't done it...yet."

The idea that anyone would be better off with China supplanting the US is asinine. This is the same government that committed the Tiananmen square massacre and still doesn't acknowledge that anything happened.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#59

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:52 PM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #58

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> go off about how we're such a better country that believes in freedom and goodness Better than China as a global model? Still, yes, probably. Potentially. Depends on how the next few years ago. Even if America fails, I’d argue a global republic is a brighter potential future than a global dictatorship.

Add to that all the military posturing over Taiwan and it's clear that it's not "China doesn't do what the US does", it's "China hasn't done it...yet." The idea that anyone would be better off with China supplanting the US is asinine. This is the same government that committed the Tiananmen square massacre and still doesn't acknowledge that anything happened.

> it's "China hasn't done it...yet.”

China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1959. To the degree we had a classical definition of intent-based genocide, Beijing continues to commit it in Tibet and Xinjiang.

America’s conscious is stained. But it’s downright nonsense to go off about surveillance when the comparison is China.

Re: I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now

#60

Post by conradev » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

ang_cire wrote: post #43

The author is naive. > The whole background of this AI conversation is that we’re in a race with China, and we have to win. But what is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It’s because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves. We don’t want the winner of the AI race to be a government which operates on the principle that there is no such thing as a truly private company or a private c…

I love that you are allowed to go off about how we are a worse country without fear of jail or shunning or anything like that. You are using your rights properly!