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The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

understandingai.org

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Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#61

Post by brundolf »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

My read of this interaction is Dario is calling out Hegseths' bluff. A bluff the latter didn't even know he was blundering into because Hegseth is an idiot. SecDef invoking the DPA against Anthropic likely trashes the AI fundraising market, at least for a spell. That's why OpenAI is wading into the fight [1]. Given the Dow is sitting on a rising souffle of AI expectations, that knocks it out as well. And if there is…

The entire administration has been operating on empty threats (see Brendan Carr's FCC speech policing). But most companies don't call them out on it, they just roll over

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#62

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #47

Imagine one of the defense primes telling the DoW, "We won't build you these planes, they're just too darned lethal!"

It's not that they are too lethal. It's "we will not build a weapon system that is fully autonomous and acts without a human in the loop".

The big boy defense contractors won't touch that shit either because as soon as you mention the idea the engineers start shouting you down from the top of their lungs out of shear unbridled terror and the lawyers come storming in due to the endless legal risk said design would bring.

Mass Domestic surveillance sure they might do no problem but fully autonomous killbots or drones are gonna be a no go from pretty much every contractor other that doesn't carry a "missing the point of Lord of the Rings" name

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#63

Post by kristjansson »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #18

Article doesn’t demonstrate a good understanding of DoW’s relationship with contractors. Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars—well, this is what happens when you make a Faustian bargain. > One option is to invoke the Defense Production Act. . . > Another threat would be to declare Anthropic to be a supply chain risk. . . The first is a wrist-slap that still gets the government what they want; the sec…

> Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars

The sold services to a willing counterparty at mutually agreed upon terms. And now the other side of that deal has recalled that they're Twelve and You're Not My Real Mom You Can't Tell Me What To Do, and so wishes they had agreed to different terms and is throwing a tantrum to attempt to force a change.

And that's Anthropic's fault? That's a risk they should have predicted?

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#64

Post by burkaman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34
mingus88 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Benito Mussolini: 'Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.' That is the reason why they would cry if the other party broke the rules to this degree. The other party is more aligned with regulations; taking power from corporations instead of giving it to them.

> Benito Mussolini: 'Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.' He literally named it [1]! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fascist_Party

Seems like it is probably a fake quote: https://politicalresearch.org/2005/01/12/mussolini-corporate...

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#65

Post by lkbm »

Eggpants wrote: post #52

What’s interesting is Anthropic being singled out here. That either means: 1- OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc have no problem with their products being used to kill people so no need to bully them. 2- These other products are so terrible at the task that the clown shoe wearing SecDef is forced to try to bully Anthropic.

Anthropic already went through the process of getting approved to work in secure network. (I think xAI may have as well, but the others just don't have that access.)

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#66

Post by Enginerrrd »

jstummbillig wrote: post #59

On the one hand it's fantastic that people are resisting and, if nothing else, raising awareness and buying time. On the other hand, is autonomous war not obviously the endgame, given how quickly capabilities are increasing and that it simply does not require much intelligence (relatively speaking) to build something that points a gun at something and pulls a trigger? It just needs one player to do it, so everyone ha…

> it simply does not require much intelligence (relatively speaking) to build something that points a gun at something and pulls a trigger?

I could not disagree more. A big part of that is also knowing when NOT to pull the trigger. And it’s much harder than you’d think. If you think full self driving is a difficult task for computers, battlefield operations are an order of magnitude more complex, at least.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#67

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #18

Article doesn’t demonstrate a good understanding of DoW’s relationship with contractors. Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars—well, this is what happens when you make a Faustian bargain. > One option is to invoke the Defense Production Act. . . > Another threat would be to declare Anthropic to be a supply chain risk. . . The first is a wrist-slap that still gets the government what they want; the sec…

There is no "DoW". Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, are named by Congress. Just because the current administration wants to use a different name means nothing ... unless everyone just complies in advance. Will Congress actually rename it? Hard to say, but it doesn't seem very likely.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#68

Post by [deleted] »

lkbm wrote: post #65
Eggpants wrote: post #52

What’s interesting is Anthropic being singled out here. That either means: 1- OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc have no problem with their products being used to kill people so no need to bully them. 2- These other products are so terrible at the task that the clown shoe wearing SecDef is forced to try to bully Anthropic.

Anthropic already went through the process of getting approved to work in secure network. (I think xAI may have as well, but the others just don't have that access.)

[deleted]

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#69

Post by cogman10 »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #45
cogman10 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remind me again how good this administration is at upholding norms? When it comes to killing and spying on people with flimsy justifications that's a pretty bipartisan norm. Hell, Anthropic isn't even saying they won't help the DoW do just that, they just want to make sure there's a human in the loop. The "USA Freedom Act" [1], which made most of the Patriot act permanent, had bipartisan support. I'm all for revers…

You’ve egregiously misread me. I spelled out the norm that the DoW would be violating if they decided to make good on their threats. > Usually it doesn’t, because of a “norm” that says the private defense sector runs more smoothly when the government doesn’t try to micromanage it. My comment has nothing to do with Anthropic’s “moral” or “ethical” stance. I also don’t see the point in both-siding this. The situation a…

My apologies, that wasn't my intent.

> I also don’t see the point in both-siding this. The situation at hand is before Hegseth and Trump. I can’t even remember Biden’s SecDef’s name.

To me, the moral and ethical problem is a bigger issue than the norms problem. There's a distinction without a difference between Hegseth doing this vs the Dems agreeing with Anthropic's demands and keeping a human in the loop on a massive spy and killing network. In some ways, stepping out of the norms and making a big news story is preferable to an unknown cabinet member just signing a business as usual agreement which erodes liberties. At least we know about it.

That's why I brought it up. It's great that Anthropic wants some safeguards, but ultimately the bigger problem is that AI with or without humans, significantly expands that ability of our military to murder and our spy agencies to spy.

Re: The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

#70

Post by newsoftheday »

mingus88 wrote: post #33
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #21

I don't have a lot of hope here. When most of the creme de la creme of the billionaire class capitulated to Trump at the beginning of his term, that set the tone for everything that followed IMO. It's astounding to me that so many are willing to see him trample on the Constitution and separation of powers when they'd scream like stuck pigs if any other party attempted it. And that's the way a lot of influential Ameri…

Benito Mussolini: 'Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.' That is the reason why they would cry if the other party broke the rules to this degree. The other party is more aligned with regulations; taking power from corporations instead of giving it to them.

> The other party is more aligned with regulations; taking power from corporations instead of giving it to them.

Enough regulation is good, not enough and too much are both bad. Neither party has the best plan when it comes to regulation, Republicans want too little (increasing corporate power), Democrats want too much (increasing government power).

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