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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#81

Post by skeledrew »

jmward01 wrote: post #25
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

Yes, and even their two exceptions, only one is on moral grounds. They don't want to provide tools for autonomous killing machines because the technology isn't good enough, yet. Once that 'yet' is passed they will be fine supplying that capability. Anthropic is clearly the better company over OpenAI, but that doesn't mean they are good. 'lesser evil' is the correct term here for sure.

The flip side is it's very unlikely that AI won't become that good any time soon, so it'll always remain a means to hold out. Especially since nobody has explicitly defined what "good enough" entails.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#82

Post by bobbiechen »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…

>I’m going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people.

>But don’t get distracted by that; I didn’t know at the time.

Caleb Hearth: "Don't Get Distracted" https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#83

Post by fwip »

qsera wrote: post #75
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

>refuse to let their systems be used for war.. I don't want wars. But tell me, what would you like your country to do when conflicts arise due to want of natural resources? Would you want your country to just give up that resource your people depend on, like may be 50/50? Do you believe it will always be possible to settle on a solution in a peaceful way that works for everyone?

Personally, I'd rather that my country (USA) be taken over by China than bomb innocents in the Middle East.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#85

Post by senadir »

qsera wrote: post #75
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

>refuse to let their systems be used for war.. I don't want wars. But tell me, what would you like your country to do when conflicts arise due to want of natural resources? Would you want your country to just give up that resource your people depend on, like may be 50/50? Do you believe it will always be possible to settle on a solution in a peaceful way that works for everyone?

[flagged]

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#87

Post by WarmWash »

6thbit wrote: post #22

> Our most important priority right now is making sure that our warfighters and national security experts are not deprived of important tools in the middle of major combat operations. > we had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways we could serve the Department that adhere to our two narrow exceptions, and ways for us to ensure a smooth transition i…

Because Anthropic is called Anthropic and they have this really warm and inviting visual aesthetic.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#88

Post by randerson »

jmward01 wrote: post #25
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

Yes, and even their two exceptions, only one is on moral grounds. They don't want to provide tools for autonomous killing machines because the technology isn't good enough, yet. Once that 'yet' is passed they will be fine supplying that capability. Anthropic is clearly the better company over OpenAI, but that doesn't mean they are good. 'lesser evil' is the correct term here for sure.

Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk.

Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fired if an LLM hallucinates and kills people? Perhaps Anthropic's stance is to avoid liability if that were to happen.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#89

Post by fwip »

shawn_w wrote: post #43
jazzyjackson wrote: post #16

DoD still has not meaningfully moved to the DoW moniker, to me it represents the most fascist tendency, to make announcements and presume that’s enough to change the truth on the ground. The legal entity one contracts with is DoD. Going along with “DoW” is signal to me that a party has capitulated to the most absurd form of governance.

Pragmatically, it's for the best to use its preferred name instead of legal name when sucking up to the department and Trump to try to get back in good graces.

Maybe it's bad that Anthropic wants to embrace the Department of War?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#90

Post by bradleyjg »

hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

If you graduated in 2007, your classmates were born around 1985. Their parents were mostly born in the mid 50s to the mid 60s and came to political consciousness either during the Vietnam War or immediately thereafter. No war since has been even close to as unpopular or frankly as salient. It’s the passing out of cultural relevance of that war that you are noticing.
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