It isn't the Department of War; only Congress can change the name, and it hasn't.
Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#872There is no Department of War. This is the dumbest fucking timeline.
To be clear, despite the downvotes, my statement is true. It is the Department of Defense. As someone who spent a good portion of my life working under it, it is offensive to me people are going along with the pretense that these idiots can unilaterally rename the organization.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#873I don't trust the statement of Anthropic too much. In the past they have done things like - https://the-decoder.com/anthropics-head-of-safeguards-resear... - https://the-decoder.com/anthropics-ceo-admits-compromising-w... (see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44651971 , https://futurism.com/leaked-messages-ceo-anthropic-dictators ) - https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-backs-pre...
The quotes from those articles (short passages?) are
> He recalls meeting President Trump at an AI and energy summit in Pennsylvania, "where he and I had a good conversation about US leadership in AI,"
> "Unfortunately, I think 'No bad person should ever benefit from our success' is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on... This is a real downside and I'm not thrilled about it."
> "Throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions. I've seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too." (from a researcher at Anthropic)
I don't think that any of this is particularly damning. Even if you don't like the president, I don't think it's bad to say that you had a good conversation with them. I believe the CEO of NVIDIA has said similar. The Saudis invest in many public US companies, does that make those companies less trust worthy? What about taking private capital from institutions such as State Street and Blackrock? The last quote seems like more of a reflection than an allegation. It read to me as a desire to do better.
I'm all for not trusting companies, but Anthropic seems to be one of the few that's trying to do good. I think we've seen a lot worse from many of their competitors.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#874I 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.…
Lots of people driven by ideals work for the US military. Not me, ever, but other people certainly.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#875I had to dig this up. Elon Musk signed an open pledge in 2016 to disallow Robots/AI to make kill decisions.
https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/lethal-autonomous-weapo...
He's now on X bashing Anthropic for taking this same stance. I know this would be expected of him, but many other Google AI researchers signed this as well as Google Deep Mind the organization. We really need to push to keep humans in the kill decision loop. Google, OpenAI, and X-AI are are all just agreeing with the Pentagon.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#876good from them, but dario does not miss a beat to hype this tech, llms are perfect for mass surveillance and i want to the laws to change to prohibit this, but llms and full autonomous weapons have very little to share
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#877All of these problems are downstream of the Congress having thoroughly abdicated its powers to the executive. The military should be reigned in at the legislative level, by constraining what it can and cannot do under law. Popular action is the only way to make that happen. Energy directed anywhere else is a waste. Private corporations should never be allowed to dictate how the military acts. Such a thought would be…
This is just a weird Trump talking point. This situation is unprecedented on many levels. The pentagon already had a signed contract with these stipulations and wanted to unilaterally renegotiate with Anthropic under threat of deeming them a foreign adversary and destroying their business if they didn't accept the DoD demands. It's totally absurd to turn this around on Anthropic and paint them as trying to determine US Military policy.
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#878Google, OpenAI Employees Voice Support for Anthropic in Open Letter. We Will Not Be Divided https://notdivided.org/ ----- The Department of War is threatening to - Invoke the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic to serve their model to the military and "tailor its model to the military's needs" - Label the company a "supply chain risk" All in retaliation for Anthropic sticking to their red lines to not allow the…
Oh what heroes! They wrote a letter! They will keep working at these scummy companies though taking their fat pay checks won't they
It's easier to affect change from within. Do you judge people for choosing to continue living in America?
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#879It is still called the Department of Defense.
I find this language fascinating. On one hand, the Department of "War" gives the department an underlying, unspoken goal that it should be involved in war with something. On the other hand, it's very easy to fund the Department of "Defense;" of course we need more money to defend our country. Don't we want to be safe! It's much less attractive to fund the Department of "War"
Re: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
#880Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the United States is ever, in the future, at war with an adversary using truly autonomous and functional killing machines; you may find yourself praying that we have our own rather than praying human nature changes. Of course, we must strive for this to never happen; but carrying a huge stick seems to be the most effective way to reduce human death and suffering from armed conflict.
> but carrying a huge stick seems to be the most effective way to reduce human death and suffering from armed conflict. Citation needed. I believe there's at least some research showing the opposite: military buildup leads to a higher risk of military conflict
Reading comprehension check: I did not say that it reduced the risk of armed conflict. I said that it reduced the death and human suffering from armed conflict.
Between the years of 1850-1950, an estimated 150M humans died (and many more permanently disabled) due to armed conflict (~1.5M/year). Between 1950-today: closer to 10M (~132k/year). The majority of those came from the Vietnam and Korean wars. If you limit the window to after 2000: only ~2M deaths, or ~78k/year. We carry bigger sticks than ever, and those sticks allow us to execute more strategic, incapacitating strikes, or stop conflict from even happening in the first place.