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Did Anthropic ask for this?

verysane.ai

71–80 of 176 posts

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#71

Half of me wonders if it was all a live simulation/drill, to practice what happens if a much more serious event occurs, and a model needed to be quickly shut down. Under such conditions we would be looking at Amazon's actions through a much more benevolent lens. Not saying it has been, but it certainly crossed my mind as something worth doing regardless.

> "to practice what happens if a much more serious event occurs" A pair of bolt cutters should do.

That's certainly one way to do it, but where would you place them?

No, but seriously, you could imagine what we witnessed playing out in a high stakes Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton style fable.

The fiery blowhard Pentagon chief, the arrogant know it all tech bro lab head, an alarm being called in from a remote office and surfaced through Amazon.

It almost writes itself.

But we can use your name for the novel.

"Bolt Cutter"

Has a nice ring to it.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#72
post #15

What I feel like is missing in the common discourse here is that Anthropic genuinely believes that AI poses an existential risk for humanity either in terms of literal survival or extreme mass surveillance, human disempowerment etc. So if you take these risks seriously, which the median commentor on HN obviously doesn't, what is the right thing to do? I.e. OpenAI just went full evil corpo mode and went all in on the…

> So if you take these risks seriously, which the median commentor on HN obviously doesn't, what is the right thing to do? Easy. You oppose it. You dedicate all your resources to stopping not just OpenAI, but anybody trying to make these technologies. With all those billions of dollars, you could get a lot done. Anthropic doesn't do this, which exposes the fundamental hypocrisy in their stated philosophies.

The genie is out, you cannot stop research in the field across the world.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#73
A government sign off on release potentially reduces liability/exposure if the models can do what it says on the box. I’m sure Anthro wants this applied to everyone and not only them, but there is a potential benefit to them.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#74
I think it's a near universal phenomenon that people with extraordinary amounts of power become victims of their own hubris. Once you get sufficiently decoupled from the consequences of your own actions, it is near impossible to tether yourself to a calibrated sense of reality.

So I genuinely think that Amodei thought here that he was building a moat - set a very high bar for safety at exactly the line Anthropic but nobody else meets, and then declare anything less to be too unsafe to be allowed. That would put a permanent halt to open models, Chinese models and throw a significant barrier in front of competitors - if OpenAI is about to release something competitive with Mythos, they would have to immediately double back and implement at least equivalent safeguards. It might cost them months at the most critical juncture in Anthropic's history, when they are filing for IPO.

Having said this, I am sure they calculated in the possibility of their own model being restricted. They probably still see it as a win because it acts as a strong endorsement of them as the market leader and the model as the most powerful available model. So I think both things are true, but we are in the "plan B" scenario now rather than "plan A".

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#75
post #15

What I feel like is missing in the common discourse here is that Anthropic genuinely believes that AI poses an existential risk for humanity either in terms of literal survival or extreme mass surveillance, human disempowerment etc. So if you take these risks seriously, which the median commentor on HN obviously doesn't, what is the right thing to do? I.e. OpenAI just went full evil corpo mode and went all in on the…

> So if you take these risks seriously, which the median commentor on HN obviously doesn't, what is the right thing to do? Easy. You oppose it. You dedicate all your resources to stopping not just OpenAI, but anybody trying to make these technologies. With all those billions of dollars, you could get a lot done. Anthropic doesn't do this, which exposes the fundamental hypocrisy in their stated philosophies.

The definition of "risk" is such that the existence of it doesn't necessarily make the thing a bad idea to pursue.

The Anthropic people probably also believe that AI has the potential to cure all diseases and reduce material poverty, which is the reason they would probably give for why they're pursuing it.

They then ring the alarm bell to mitigate the risk and increase the chances of the upside scenario coming to fruition.

Or they could take your advice up-thread and just lie to stay out of the government's crosshairs. That's another option.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#76
post #66
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but hasn't OpenAI been doing the same thing for years? They seem to be on slightly better terms though...

OpenAI is happy to sell their device to the gov’t to blow things up with, Anthropic tried to tell the gov’t to pound sand, no blowing things up for you.

It was more like "you can use our device to blow things up you just need a human to type --dangerously-skip-permissions when they run it"

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My eighty year old father brought up OpenAI unprompted a few months ago. At this point it’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t heard of OpenAI.

Depends entirely on whether they leave CNBC playing as background noise

Yes. Can’t wag the dog without centralized networks; even if they’re now Meta algorithms, they’re still there.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#78

No, Anthropic clearly did not ask for this. 1. "Dario is known for writing about regulation and the direction of AI as an industry and Anthropic in particular, and what he says is taken very seriously and is considered a definitive statement of the company’s position." This is patently ridiculous. A CEO's blog post is not an official company statement or any sort of binding agreement. 2. "Are there protective measure…

> It clearly politically motivated, and clearly arbitrary Arbitrary, yes. Politically motivated? I think you are giving the administration way too much credit. I think what this is are simply incompetent people with too much influence. I mean, Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick? What the heck do they understand about this technology? https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/13/inside-the-whirlwin...

They probably do understand that they are more chummy with xAI.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#79
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another neutral party might not believe it's really a doomsday device and that what currently looks like exponential growth in capability could be an s-curve that plateaus in a year or two. After that, it will be diminishing returns to invest heavily into a tech that won't get much better. So what are the current leaders in the field supposed to do to stave off competition? They should convince the public that they d…

I completely agree with you. I think the problem is that Anthropic believes their own BS, and thinks it IS a Doomsday device which only THEY can control. I think that's what's produced this outcome.

I’m surprised people are reacting so strongly over this.

Suppose there is a huge concern—would you prefer they just release it as-is and everyone suffers data-breaches and more supply-chain attacks?

I used Fable 5 for a fair amount of tasks before they pulled it and I can only imagine what an untapped version of that could do.

It’s very capable and equally aggressive in accomplishing its goals.

Re: Did Anthropic ask for this?

#80
post #52

Maybe this will be simpler for Anthropic to understand if they take their own high-minded philosophical nonsense and ego out of it and consider it the way a neutral party would. Suppose a company calls themselves The Doomsday Device Company. They make and sell excellent-quality doomsday devices. They regularly go online to proclaim that their doomsday devices are the best and most powerful, and also that doomsday dev…

Shame on a company for sticking to their values, I guess. The dichotomy between Anthropic and OpenAI's treatment honestly couldn't be more obvious. OpenAI has also asked for increased AI regulation, and they've also released GPT 5.5 Cyber which is claimed to have the same vulnerability-finding abilities as Mythos. OpenAI received no such notices like Anthropic. OpenAI also received a government contract, while Anthro…

Their values are garbage. Paternalism, censorship, suppression. These are people who think they are the enlightened ones while we're all dangerous terrorists. They are in fact pulling up the ladder behind them, just like all the other big techs.

It's indeed quite satisfying to watch them be the first ones burned by the heavy hand of government they worshipped so much.

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