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Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#741

Post by u1hcw9nx »

pjc50 wrote: post #734
eric-burel wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They love their dictator until it backfires, that's a quite old story.

Google employees were generally pretty anti-Trump, it's the senior leadership and the recommendation algorithms that are pro-Trump.

Senior leaders in Google are not pro-Trump.

Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Ellison (Oracle) consistently supported Trump before his win was certain and are tight with Trump. They were megadonors behind his campaign.

Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin) and Zuckerberg (Meta) pivoted towards Trump in 2024 after it looked like he would wind second time. They are opportunistic bastards who try to weasel into the good side of Trump with varying results.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia etc. just bend the knee. They are reluctant but pragmatic and try to protect the company when their competition Amazon, Meta and Oracle are on the inside. Notice that in this final group, CEOs lack autonomy. At Alphabet, Page and Brin retain controlling authority (and they just try to avoid getting involved with Trump). Nvidia lacks a dual-class structure, meaning Jensen Huang (4% votes) can be outvoted on critical matters. Both Apple and Microsoft are "faceless" corporation where the CEOs serve as hired hands.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#742

Post by drawfloat »

lebovic wrote: post #202

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…

"Mass surveillance of anywhere else in the world but America" is not the great idealistic position you are making it out to be.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#744

Post by dust42 »

whstl wrote: post #700
lebovic wrote: post #202

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…

> Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are After 20 years of everyone in this industry saying "we want to make the world a better place" and doing the opposite, the problem here is not really related to people's "understanding". And before the default answer kicks in: this is not cynicism. Plenty of folks here on HN and elsewhere legitimately believe that it…

Exactly. At this level you don't just put out a statement of your personal opinion. This is run through PR and coordinated with the investors. Otherwise the CEO finds himself on the street by tomorrow. Whatever their motives are, it is aligned with VC, because if it is not then the next day there is another CEO. As the parent stated, this is not cynicism. I see this just rather factual, it is simply the laws of money.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#745

Post by Quarrelsome »

sithamet wrote: post #686
qaid wrote: post #62

I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me: > But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"? Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing > AI-driven domestic mass surveillance And neither denounces partially a…

Also, as someone from a country that has been attacked and dragged into war, I would prefer machines fighting (and being destroyed autonomously) rather than my people dying, nor people from any nation that came to help. That's as Anthropic as it gets if your nerve expands a little bit further than your HOA.

> would prefer machines fighting (and being destroyed autonomously) rather than my people dying

But the reality is more like the surprise of a bunch of submersible kill bots terrorising a coastal city and murdering people. Even in bot-first combat, at some point one side of bots wins either totally, allowing it to kill people indiscriminately or partially, which forces the team on the back foot to pivot to guerilla warfare and terror attacks, using robots.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#746

Post by Aldipower »

lebovic wrote: post #202

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…

3 words for you: This is naive.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#747

Post by eternauta3k »

yunnpp wrote: post #399
lebovic wrote: post #202

I used to work at Anthropic, and I wrote a comment on a thread earlier this week about the RSP update [1]. It's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Something I don't think is well understood on HN is how driven by ideals many folks at Anthropic are, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals. I have strong signal th…

It's good to be driven by ideals, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... I think avg(HN) is mostly skeptical about the output, not that the input is corrupt or ill-meaning in this case. Although with other companies, one can't even take their claims seriously. And in any case, this is difficult territory to navigate. I would not want to be in your spot.

Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#748

Post by Quarrelsome »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #374
jjcm wrote: post #155

This is the strongest statement in the post: > They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels u…

> this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use It’s a flippant move by Hegseth. I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is pushing for this. I doubt Trump is more than cursorily aware. Maybe Miller got in the idiot’s ear, who knows.

flippant? Its aggressive, belligerent and entitled. I'm not seeing "flippant". Unless this is some sort of weasely "oh we only threatened them a bit" bullshit. This is about entitled pricks in government who consider their temporary democratic mandate as a carte blanche for absolutism.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#749

Post by Quarrelsome »

mandeepj wrote: post #442
jjcm wrote: post #155

This is the strongest statement in the post: > They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels u…

First of all, there's no such thing as "Department of War". A department name change is legal/binding only after it's approved by the Senate. Senator Kelly is still calling it DoD (Department of Defense). > Mass domestic surveillance. Since when has DoD started getting involved with the internal affairs of the country? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...

I'd imagine the pentagon are more interested in the autonomous kill bot part than the surveillance part.

Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

#750

Post by kingkawn »

sithamet wrote: post #686
qaid wrote: post #62

I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me: > But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"? Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing > AI-driven domestic mass surveillance And neither denounces partially a…

Also, as someone from a country that has been attacked and dragged into war, I would prefer machines fighting (and being destroyed autonomously) rather than my people dying, nor people from any nation that came to help. That's as Anthropic as it gets if your nerve expands a little bit further than your HOA.

What about machines slaughtering the population without pause?
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