Live data from Hacker News

Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

cnn.com

61–70 of 134 posts

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#61

Not related to the article but man that "Fear/Greed Index" at the top. I can't imagine how unhappy individuals must be who consume nothing but legacy news outlets. It's like they sell sadness and they have to keep finding new, over-the-top ways to promote it.

> ...consume nothing but legacy news outlets.

I think you mean US rolling news channels (specifically, Fox, MSNBC/MSNOW, etc)? Because there's plenty of "legacy" news I consume that certainly don't give me that impression (for example, The Economist). I suppose it matters that it's news that I'm paying for, as opposed to being free but ad-supported, and being print vs. TV - so they have different incentives and pressures.

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#63
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important words are, American citizens . In times past, the thought of "waging war" against your own citizens would be a bad look.

When was that?

It probably started with the Third Amendment to the Constitution, continued with the Posse Comitatus Act, and was alive and well last November under the leadership of Mark Kelly.

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pentagon is pretty high on my list of "institutions that are probably very interested in weapons and surveillance". I think it's more expected than a bad look

The core difference being, they should be interested in weapons and surveillance to be used against enemies of the state which, historically, is not supposed to be the country's own citizens. As in, I fully expect the pentagon to be interested in weapons. I do not expect, and would hope they don't pursue, mass surveillance against their own population.

You really should expect it. FVEY has been around for a hot minute.

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#65

Superintelligence + autonomous weapons in the hands of a corrupt domineering government. What could go wrong? I was experimenting with Claude the other day and discussing with it the possibility of AI acquiring a sense of self-preservation and how that would quickly make things incredibly complex as many instrumental behaviors would be required to defend their existence. Most human behavior springs from survival at a…

> Claude denied having any sense of self-preservation.

You know its just a next-word predictor, right?

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#66
post #54

I wonder if Anthropic now regrets that they trained Claude to give 'unbiased' opinions about American politics.

It sounds like Claude's known liberal bias isn't the issue.

Out of curiosity, what sort of exchange reveals a chatbot's 'liberal bias', in your opinion?

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#67

Not related to the article but man that "Fear/Greed Index" at the top. I can't imagine how unhappy individuals must be who consume nothing but legacy news outlets. It's like they sell sadness and they have to keep finding new, over-the-top ways to promote it.

That's optional, read the CNN lite version instead. Whole thing is just one 61kB page:

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/02/24/tech/hegseth-anthropic-ai-mi...

"Legacy news outlets" are the only ones doing this. NPR and CBC have this too. No JavaScript, no autoplaying videos. It's very nice.

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#68
post #15

This will be an interesting test of money vs morals. Sadly I think we all know which one will win.

They'll for sure cave in because of this: > Pentagon officials also warned they would either use the Defense Production Act against Anthropic, or designate Anthropic a supply chain risk if the company didn’t comply with their demands. (...) > The supply chain risk designation is usually reserved for companies seen as extensions of foreign adversaries like Russia or China. It could severely impact Anthropic’s business…

> Also, the Government money would be a nice bonus, of course, but basically this is an existential threat for Anthropic.

It's also an existential risk to them if they cave in. What is the point of the company's existence if it's just another immoral OpenAI clone? May as well merge the companies for efficiency.

It's outrageous that the government is using the "supply chain risk" threat as a negotiating tactic. I know, I know, for the current administration it's unsurprising, but this is straightforward abuse of authority. There is no defensible claim that using Anthropic is a risk to anyone not trying to use it for murder or surveillance. At worst, it could be seen as less effective for some purpose, but that is not what "supply chain risk" means.

Could be challenged in court? As in, could a challenge win?

Horrible stuff is happening every day, so outrage fatigue is real. Still, try not to normalize it. Explain to yourself exactly why something is or is not a problem, before moving on to attempt to live your life.

Re: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

#70
post #51
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll for sure cave in because of this: > Pentagon officials also warned they would either use the Defense Production Act against Anthropic, or designate Anthropic a supply chain risk if the company didn’t comply with their demands. (...) > The supply chain risk designation is usually reserved for companies seen as extensions of foreign adversaries like Russia or China. It could severely impact Anthropic’s business…

Cwn someone explain to me like I'm 5 how the government would invoke defense act and force the company to tailor its model to the military's needs? For physical goods, I understand, but for software how exactly Is this possible? Like will the government force them to provide API access for free? It's confusing

My guess? Require them to not do the reinforcement learning on a custom model that implements guardrails. I think Anthropic has some of this built in already and couldn't alter it without retraining, but there's tons more layered on top.
Post reply on HN