The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic

Post by thejohnconway » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #66

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.

Post by troyvit » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #67

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.

Post by tikhonj » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

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.

Post by davidw » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #66

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.

Post by stronglikedan » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

mediaman wrote: post #73

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.

It's not either of those. Anthropic put a lot of effort into getting FedRAMP approved so the DOD could use them; they are now being punished for that, and the government at present has no other good options. Other options could of course be developed, but other vendors may question how unreliable and untrustworthy the current DOD leadership is as as customer.