Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 862 posts

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#561

Post by ozzymuppet »

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…

I don't think the world has changed. There's just a madman in the white house. Look at the "Presidents" tweet for god sake... how is this normal?!

"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! "

"The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.

Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!"

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#562

Post by small_model »

ryandrake wrote: post #45
mempko wrote: post #21

Long time ago I worked for a company that I learned was selling it's software to help target people during the Iraq war. I quit because I cannot support building software that kills people. This is a message to people working for that line of business at Anthropic. You don't have to do it, you can quit. If you are helping this insane administration to conduct war on Iran quit. You don't need to have that kind of bloo…

I've also quit a job where the products I was working were meant to be deployed to CBP to hunt down immigrants. It's a nice gesture, but it won't stop these companies. They just hired someone else without an ethical backbone, and continued the project like nothing happened. Tech leadership is rotten to the core, and that can't be fixed by individuals making a stand.

Or someone with a backbone, i.e. willing to enforce the law.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#563

Post by danielsamuels »

vldszn wrote: post #559

Under Secretary of War Emil Michael: I want to end all speculation: there is no active DeptofWar negotiation with AnthropicAI https://x.com/uswremichael/status/2029754965778907493?s=46&t...

It's worth reading his recent comments on this whole affair: https://www.a16z.news/p/emil-michaels-holy-cow-moment-with

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#564

Post by benterix »

lukan wrote: post #554
benterix wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but this itself doesn't necessarily have to mean anything, e.g. DARPA sponsored half of the nice things we're using every day.

"DARPA sponsored half of the nice things we're using every day" That's a very bold claim. (And I am aware of the history of the Internet)

"Half" is obviously an exaggeration but apart from time-sharing operating systems, the Internet, what is now CSAIL and (partially) GPS, they sponsored a ton of open source projects. They used to maintain a catalog[0]. The Web Archive version[1] contains a partial list (e.g. OpenBSD was sponsored only for a few years and is not included there).

[0] https://www.darpa.mil/opencatalog

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140301185004/https://www.darpa...

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#565

Post by Planktonne »

dotancohen wrote: post #347
komali2 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about Americans. What genuine threat did Venezuela or Iran pose to Americans ? Corporate interests don't count.

Do you not perceive a threat from a country with nuclear capability that chants "Death to America, Death to Israel" to be a threat to America? Venezuela I don't know about, but Iran was (is) most certainly a threat to America.

If it's moral to strike at a country with nuclear capability that talks constantly about your country's destruction, then it's no less acceptable for Iran to strike the US than the other way around.

You can't condemn one and condone the other on that basis.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#566

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

komali2 wrote: post #306
regularization wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan. It's amusing amidst the US bombing Iran, incarceration the president of Venezuela and his wife after slaughtering everyone who was in the room with him, seizing oil tankers off Cuba, continuing the siege of Gaza and on and on to start getting sanctimonious about China. Taiwan is Kinmen island in Xiamen harbor, so a mainland invasion of Taiwan would b…

> Taiwan does not consider Taiwan and mainland China to be separate countries. This is false. Both the government of Taiwan, and the people here, obviously consider the two countries separate, and neither have made any overtures challenging the sovereignty of the CPC in nearly fifty years. Not to mention the fact that the last government to do so has been overthrown in the 90s (the overthrow of the KMT settler coloni…

There's a distinction between countries and governments. Both sides officially consider themselves to be China, the country, but under different, competing governments. They're the product of a civil war inside China, after all.

The current ruling party of Taiwan would like to change that, but they haven't done so for the obvious reason that the PRC would not accept it (and most Taiwanese people prefer to just leave things as they are).

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#567

Post by vldszn »

danielsamuels wrote: post #563
vldszn wrote: post #559

Under Secretary of War Emil Michael: I want to end all speculation: there is no active DeptofWar negotiation with AnthropicAI https://x.com/uswremichael/status/2029754965778907493?s=46&t...

It's worth reading his recent comments on this whole affair: https://www.a16z.news/p/emil-michaels-holy-cow-moment-with

Thank you, will take a look

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#568

Post by laserlight »

qsera wrote: post #556
laserlight wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the point. What does objectivity have to do with the value of x? Your example seems to validate my point of view: warmongers disguise their subjectivity by basing their actions on “objective” models.

>What does objectivity have to do with the value of x? It does not have anything to do with objectivity. I thought it to be futile to discuss that since, as you implied, predicting future can't be 100% objective, and thus decisions to avert a bad future outcome always need to be based on subjective decisions. So this is another question where I want to ask you how you would make a subjective call.

Got it. Looks like we're on the same page. Everyone makes a subjective call.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#569

Post by duskdozer »

7952 wrote: post #498
godelski wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with Ender's Game. They are playing war games but they're actually real. He sacrifices his units and commits genocide (xenocide) at the same time. Something he probably wouldn't have done had he known. > Nobody has to take ethics during undergrad anymore I guess... My undergrad wasn't in CS but my grad was. I was incredibly surprised to find that ethics isn't a requirement in most CS programs. That's a sharp con…

And the world seen through media is heavily abstracted. And I think that makes people psychologically treat war like a game rather than something actually happening. We trick ourselves into believing it isn't real.

I wonder how much this changes based on country. The closest thing to a war happening within US borders was the attack on Pearl Harbor (I think). The US hasn't had conscription for 50 years. So there isn't much of a clearly visible and direct cost to war for many many Americans. I'm not arguing there isn't a cost, by the way, just that most can basically just not watch the news and have no idea war is happening.
Post reply on HN