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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#511

Post by alex43578 »

etchalon wrote: post #389
zarzavat wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how all other weapons of mass destruction were rationalised. "If we develop we can save so many lives of our soldiers". It always ends up being used to murder civilians.

Literally the justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Do you think a continuation of the firebombing campaign and an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have resulted in fewer deaths of civilians (particularly of the 'volunteer fighting corps')?

That's to say nothing of the deaths in a potential US/USSR conflict that goes hot without the Damocles Sword of MAD...

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#513

Post by awesomeMilou »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #320
Rohunyyy wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See in your case with the military you can directly say, hey my code will be used to bomb other people possibly. But in today's times it isn't (I am sure even then) so cut and dry. I worked in AdTech industry (like 60% of the bay area techies). So the ad tech I write gets shown to millions/billions. What about ads influencing elections and then politicians waging wars? Anti-vax ads which influence people and then kil…

Well you cannot be responsible for adults' discernment or their critical thinking. If those same ads are being shown to children that would be different.

But they are?

And it's a fallacy to assume that critical thinking is something that you're born with. In addition to the media landscape being completely ingrained into society. I can't really escape recommender engines anymore when consuming media.

If your exposure to media is curated since you were born, how are you going to tell if you're being deceived? It's pretty much the allegory of the cave.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#514

Post by throwaway132448 »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #420
simonw wrote: post #12

Raised an eyebrow a little at this sentence: "Anthropic has much more in common with the Department of War than we have differences."

I was actually very impressed with their post. It’s a work of art for how carefully it was worded. My takeaway is that they are bending a knee to smooth things over. It’s business and it’s human behavior. They are actually furious and would love to tell Trump to crawl up his own ass, but that doesn’t help anyone in the long run. It’s in everyone’s best interest to get back to work and hope for the best tomorrow. It’s…

Just be mindful that you filled in the gaps between the lines with what you wanted to read, not necessarily what's true.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#515

Post by shafyy »

pawkaman84 wrote: post #507
keiferski wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I don’t understand the point of your initial comment or what you’re trying to say.

He was trying to say that "making money in a free-market" is fundamentally linked to creating value for someone. It wasn't the 'money' word that you should have focused on, but the 'value'. On average this way of creating value bottoms-up has undoubtedly produced the largest human flourishing in the history of our species. It has unlocked human creativity and has lifted millions of people from poverty. It is the best…

To add to keiferski's excellent comments: There is no such thing a truly free market. Neoliberalism is just an excuse to not care about things that stand in the way of people making more money or gaining more power.

This wealth we have built was not built on a totally free market (whatever that means), but much more social form of capitalism. The countries where there is the least povery and highest standards of living are countries that have a big social welfare state, such as the Norics.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#517

Post by jiggawatts »

XorNot wrote: post #398
reaperducer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "This doesn't fit into my mental model, so everyone else must be lying" is how you deal with things you didn't personally experience, do what you have to.

The inability to accurately cite any story about this, and the "friend of a friend" structure is what implies it's garbage. Not to mention it itself requires a conspiracy theory: "no one would do this work voluntarily" (or "all the smart people have to be tricked because they're so smart they obviously agree with me"). As though people don't just go and work at Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

> "no one would do this work voluntarily"

The much more common reason is compartmentalisation. Employees are told as much as they need to know, no more.

If someone can design a glide bomb without knowing that it has an explosive payload, then they're not told.

The fear is not so much the employees themselves (they might be quite patriotic!) but that the information will leak out to the enemy, giving them a chance to counter the weapon or copy it.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#518

Post by Shank »

kortilla wrote: post #439
nyargh wrote: post #433

I would say to you who would equivocate and dither about lending your skills to a morally and ethically compromised war machine in exchange for a fat paycheck, the same thing that I teach my children: "Everything and I mean everything can be taken from you except your integrity, only you can give that up"

Defense doesn’t pay better than regular tech. The people in defense are doing it because they believe in helping the govt.

I used to work in defense, and this is not true either. People work in defense because it is effectively a job where you can never lose your job except for absolute gross misconduct, have a hard-cap of 40 hours a week / 80 hours a pay cycle (commonly leads to people working "9/80 schedules" and taking every other friday off), and generally speaking you have a lot of chances to move around org charts when programs change. A "cushy" job with very low chance of being fired with a stable paycheck is valuable to a lot of people.

There are also missions people find valuable, like SBIRS ground, where theoretically real lives are being protected. I know a lot of people who enjoy finding meaning in their work, and there are many programs that bring that level of satisfaction (again, look at things like SBIRS ground).

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#519

Post by refurb »

hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

It’s like cheating on a spouse, it’s not much of a claim to say “id never cheat” when there are zero opportunities to do so.

Same with the claims from companies like Google - “dont be evil”. Easy to say when there is nothing on the line.

But when the choice is between your claimed morals and the future success of your company, those morals disappear in a hurry. But they were never strongly held in the first place.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#520

Post by suddenlybananas »

fwipsy wrote: post #230
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

Attitude towards war depends on context. In 2007 "war" meant "Iraq" which was extremely unpopular, pointless, and had an imperialist flavor. Today "war" means Gaza, Iran, and Venezuela, but it also means Ukraine and Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan. I suspect Amodei and many Anthropic employees are thinking of the latter.

Iraq was much more popular in 2003 [1] than the current war in Iran is [2].

[1] "In the months leading up to the war, majorities of between 55% and 68% said they favored taking military action to end Hussein’s rule in Iraq. No more than about a third opposed military action."

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-...

[2] "Some 27% of respondents said they approved of the strikes, which were conducted alongside Israeli attacks on Iran, while 43% disapproved and 29% were not sure"

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/just-one-four-americans-sup...

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