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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

#861

Post by dwringer »

titzer wrote: post #825
nubg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's phrased just fine. It's not up to Dario to try to make absolute statements about the future.

It's not called The Department of War . It's just incredible to me that people think this is some kind of bold statement defying the administration when it is absolutely filled with small and medium capitulations, laying out in numerous examples how they just jumped right in bed with the military. And no one seems disturbed by the blatant Orwellian doublespeak throughout. "We thoroughly support the mission of the Dep…

I'm really surprised that didn't jump out at more people; I had to get halfway through the comments to the 27th mention of "Department of War" to find the first comment pointing out that using the name is itself a capitulation.

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

#862

Post by orbital-decay »

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.

>Geopolitically they could care less.

I think that at the very least you might want to read Dario's nationalistic rants before saying anything like that.

>align them with humanity.

Quick sanity check: does their version of humanity include e.g. North Koreans?

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

#865

Post by DudeOpotomus »

It's never wrong to do the right thing.

Trump and his cronies are short timers. They will all be gone in a few years, many in prison, many in the ground.

Treat them with abandon and disdain, because they are the worst people in the history of the USA. Stand on your principles because they have none.

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

#866

Post by moozooh »

xpe wrote: post #432
bnr-ais wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic had the largest IP settlement ($1.5 billion) for stolen material and Amodei repeatedly predicted mass unemployment within 6 months due to AI. Without being bothered about it at all. It is a horrible and ruthless company and hearing a presumably rich ex-employee painting a rosy picture does not change anything.

> Without being bothered about it at all. I disagree: I see lots of evidence that he cares. For one, he cares enough to come out and say it. Second, read about his story and background. Read about Anthropic's culture versus OpenAI's. Consider this as an ethical dilemma from a consequentialist point of view. Look at the entire picture: compare Anthropic against other major players. A\ leads in promoting safe AI. If A\…

Dario Amodei: "We want to empower democracies with AI." "AI-enabled authoritarianism terrifies me." "Claude shall never engage or assist in an attempt to kill or disempower the vast majority of humanity."

Also Dario Amodei: seeks investment from authoritarian Gulf states, makes deals with Palantir, willingly empowers the "department of war" of a country repeatedly threatening to invade an actual democracy (Greenland), proactively gives the green light to usage of Claude for surveillance on non-Americans.

Yeah, I don't know what your definition of "care" is but mine isn't that, clearly. You might want to reassess that. Care implies taking action to prevent the outcome, not help it come sooner.

The problem with counterfactual arguments like yours is that they frame the problem as a false dichotomy to smuggle in an ethically questionable line of decisions that somebody has made and keeps making. If you deliberately frame this as "everybody does this", it conveniently absolves bad actors of any individual responsibility and leads discussion away from assuming that responsibility and acting on it toward accepting this sorry state of events as some sort of a predetermined outcome which it certainly is not.

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

#867

Post by wrsh07 »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #790
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…

> how driven by ideals many folks at $Corporatron are Well let's see... it says in the post: * worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community. * the first frontier AI company to deploy our models in the US government’s classified networks, * the first to deploy them at the National Laboratories, and * the first to provide custom models for national security customers.…

They didn't claim to have pacifist ideals

In fact, they claim to be pro America and pro democracy and have repeatedly expressed concerns about autocratically governed countries.

Just because you disagree with their ideals doesn't mean they're not holding to theirs

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

#868

Post by phyzome »

krzyk wrote: post #808

Does US really have Department of War? Is this Antropics way to show how f &^ ^& up they are in Department of Defense, or did they rebranded it to the old WWI/II days?

Unofficially renamed. Congress hasn't approved it.

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

#869

Post by phyzome »

exabrial wrote: post #416

Brother in law did some "time with the brass" as he calls it. His take was that the DOD, er DOW would, as an example, never acquire a fighter jet that "wouldn't target and kill a civilian airliner", citing that on 9/11 we literally almost did that. The DOW is acquiring instruments of war, which is probably unconformable for a lot of people to consider. His conclusion was that the limits of use ought to be contractual…

The Pentagon did agree to those terms, by signing the contract that said such uses were forbidden.

They're now trying to change the contract that they don't like.

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

#870

Post by tyingq »

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…

I don't think it's cynical to acknowledge the pattern that publicly owned companies will eventually cave to the desires of their shareholders.

I understand Anthropic is not public, but I assume there's an IPO coming.

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