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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

#791

Post by viking123 »

bertylicious wrote: post #628
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…

"They're driven by values" is meaningless praise unless you qualify what these values are. The Nazis had values too, you know. They were even willing to die for them. One of the core values of the Catholic church is probably compassion. Except for the victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by their clergy. So what core values led "Dario, Jared, and Sam" to work with a government that just tried to rename the DoD to "dep…

> And who exactly are these "autocratic adversaries" they are mentioning?

Anyone that Israel doesn't like

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

#792

Post by kseniamorph »

lm28469 wrote: post #610
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…

Idk man, from the outside anthropic looks a lot like openai with a cute redisgn and Amodei like Altman with a slightly more human face mask, the same media manipulation, the same vague baseless affirmations about "something big is coming and we can't even describe it but trust us we need more money"

disagree. at least i can see the quality of research coming out of Anthropic, which tells me these people are interested in what they're doing. i don't see this level of scientific rigor in OpenAI

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

#793

Post by moozooh »

D_Alex wrote: post #570
bambax wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This last development is much to the honor of Anthropic and Amodei and confirms what you're saying. What I don't get though is, why did the so-called "Department of War" target Anthropic specifically? What about the others, esp. OpenAI? Have they already agreed to cooperate? or already refused? Why aren't they part of this?

I'm a bit underwhelmed tbh. Here is Anthropic's motto: "At Anthropic, we build AI to serve humanity’s long-term well-being." Why does Anthropic even deal with the Department of @#$%ing WAR? And what does Amodei mean by "defeat" in his first paragraph?

Look up when Anthropic signed a contract with Palantir and then look up what Palantir does if you want an even better reality check on following the ideals. I chuckle every time.

And nobody knows what he means by "defeat" because no journalist interrogates or pushes back on his grand statements when they hear it. Amodei has a history of claiming they need to "empower democracies with powerful AI" before [China] gets to it first but he never elaborates on why or what he expects to happen if the opposite comes to pass. I am assuming he means China will inevitably wage cyberwar on the US unless the US has a "nuclear deterrent" for that kind of thing. But seeing how this administration handles its own AI vendors, I am currently more afraid of such "empowered democracy" than China. Because of Greenland, because of "our hemisphere". Hard nope to that.

Oh, btw, Dario isn't against the DoD using Claude for mass surveillance outside of the US; he basically says it outright in the text. Humanity stops at Americans.

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

#794

Post by omnee »

Agree fully with the main points of this statement. Mass domestic surveillance is the hallmark of an authoritarian and undemocratic state. That such a state holds 'votes' regularly does not detract from the chilling effect on public discourse and politics caused by mass surveillance.

The guardrail on fully automated weapons makes perfect sense, and hopefully becomes standardised globally.

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

#795

Post by j45 »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #721
whstl wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think most people are conscious that, irrespective of a founders vision, company morals usually don't survive the MBA-inisation phase of a company's growth.

The impact of MBAs might be decreasing..

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

#796

Post by moozooh »

lonelyasacloud wrote: post #687
comandillos wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this is just another marketing stunt where the company wants to build a public image so their customers trust them (see Apple), but then as always who knows what will happen behind the scenes. Just see when most major US companies had backdoors on their systems providing all data to the NSA, i.e. PRISM.

>just another marketing stunt What evidence on _Amodei_ and his actions leads to that conclusion?

Anthropic's policy is full of contradictions. They are against mass-surveillance of Americans but they happily deal with Palantir. They talk about humanity as a whole but only care about what American companies use their models to do to Americans; everybody else is fair game for AI-driven surveillance. They warn of the dangers of AI-driven warfare by demonstrating a mass-scale cyberattack perpetrated using their model, Claude, as the main operation engine and immediately release a new, more powerful version of Claude. You just need to use Claude to protect yourself from Claude, see.

When you really start digging into it, it appears schizophrenic at first, and then you remember market incentives are a thing and everything falls into place.

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

#797

Post by GorbachevyChase »

dust42 wrote: post #744
whstl wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I am suspicious the whole thing is a PR stunt to build public trust.

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

#798

Post by ExoticPearTree »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #534
protocolture wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I's enheartening to see that leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table to be guided by values. Their "Values": >We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner. Read: They are cool with whatever. >We support the use of AI for lawful foreign intelligence and counterintelligence missions. Read: We support s…

Their values are about AI safety. Geopolitically they could care less. You might think its a bad take but at least they are consistent. AI safety people largely think that stuff like autonomous weapons are inevitable so they focus on trying to align them with humanity.

> AI safety people largely think that stuff like autonomous weapons are inevitable so they focus on trying to align them with humanity.

This meaning what exactly? Having autonomous weapons kill what exactly that is so different from what soldiers kill? Or killing others more efficiently so they “don’t feel a thing”?

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

#799

Post by sneak »

The only reason you ask for these capabilities is because you want to use these capabilities.

That is, the news here is that DoW (formerly DoD) is willing and able and interested in using SOTA AI to enable processing of domestic mass surveillance data and autonomous weapons. Anthropic’s protests aside, you can’t fight city hall, they have a heart attack gun and Anthropic does not. They’ll get what they want.

I am not particularly AI alarmist, but these are facts staring us right in the face.

We are so fucked.

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

#800

Post by keybored »

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…

As a complete bystander I put so incredibly little weight to what friends and former employees think about the persons and figureheads behind tech companies that aim to change the world.

Why would I care. All people with at least some positive or negative notoriety have friend and associates that will, hand to their heart, promise that they mean well. They have the best intentions. And any deviations from their stated ideals are just careful pragmatic concerns.

Road to Hell and all that.

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