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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

#881

Post by mcv »

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…

Exactly. I'd love to believe that at Anthropic, idealism trumps money. But Google was once idealistic too. OpenAI was too. It's really hard to resist the pull of money. Especially if you're a for-profit corporation, but OpenAI wasn't even that at first.

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

#882

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> leaders at Anthropic are willing to risk losing their seat at the table

Hot take: Dario isn’t risking that much. Hegseth being Hegseth, he overplayed his hand. Dario is calling his bluff.

Contract terminations are temporary. Possibly only until November. Probably only until 2028 unless the political tide shifts.

Meanwhile, invoking the Defense Production Act to seize Anthropic’s IP basically triggers MAD across American AI companies—and by extension, the American capital markets and economy—which is why Altman is trying to defuse this clusterfuck. If it happens it will be undone quickly, and given this dispute is public it’s unlikely to happen at all.

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

#883

Post by 827a »

RGamma wrote: post #695
827a wrote: post #556

Earlier 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.

Given how unstable and aggressive the US government is at the moment others having these weapons seems to be a good idea for balance. Not sure you are aware of the damage Trump is inflicting on international relations. But personally I wouldn't like to die because some crackpot with the right connections can will rest-of-world to that fate, no matter their affiliation. This escalation of destructive power and the car…

Reading comprehension check: I never stated that others shouldn't have the weapons. In fact, I stated what you are stating: that it is likely others will have the weapons, and for the sake of balance the West will be in a better place if the US also has them.

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

#884

Post by vladms »

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…

> everyone in this industry

So in the last 20 years there is nothing good coming out of the software industry (if this is the industry you mention) ?

I find it somehow ironic, because this type of generalization is for me the same issue that some of the people saying "they want to make a better place" have: accept reality is complex.

There were huge benefits for society from the software industry in the last 20 years. There were (as well!) huge downsides. Around 2000 lots of people were "Microsoft will lock us in forever". 20 years later, the fear "moved" to other things. Imagining that companies can last forever seems misguided. IBM, Intel, Nokia and others were once great and the only ones but ultimately got copied and pushed from the spotlight.

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

#885

Post by shevy-java »

> I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies

I do not want to be "defended" by tools controlled by the US government, with or without Trump. But with Trump it is much more obvious now, so I'll pass.

Perhaps AI use will make open source development more important; many people don't want to be subjected to the US software industry anymore. They already control WAY too much - Google is now the biggest negative example here.

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

#886

Post by shevy-java »

fluidcruft wrote: post #114
willmorrison wrote: post #89

They essentially said "we're not fans of mass surveilance of US citizens and we won't use CURRENT models to kill people autonomously" and people are saying they're taking a stand and doing the right thing? What??? I guess they're evil. Tragic.

It's not inconceivable that AI could become better than humans at targeting things. For example if it can reliably identify enemy warcraft or drones faster than people can react. I'm not saying Claude's models are suited for that but humans aren't perfect and in theory AI can be better than humans. It's not currently true and would need to be proved, but it doesn't seem unreasonable. It could well be better than some…

Indeed. The AI will decide who has to die and who may live.

Skynet in Terminator was scary. The AI Skynet is even scarier - and sucks, too.

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

#887

Post by didip »

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…

I like the enthusiasm, but remember that Google used to be: “Don’t be Evil”

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

#888

Post by jghn »

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…

> to rename the DoD to "department of war"

The very fact that they referred to it as the Department of War instead of Defense tells me that they're still bootlickers, and just trying to put a good spin on things.

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

#889

Post by amai »

skylerwiernik wrote: post #873
amai wrote: post #833

I 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,…

The problem is this:

> The Saudis invest in many public US companies, does that make those companies less trust worthy?

It does. If Anthropic takes money from the middle east that might be the reason, why they cannot work for the Pentagon. Simply because the Pentagon works together with the Israeli Forces and middle east investors might not like this. So Anthropic has to decide to either take a lot of money from the middle east, or work for the Pentagon.

Of course the problem goes much deeper than just Anthropic. I don't understand why taking money from dictatorships doesn't count as money laundering in our society. Because basically this is dirty money, generated by slavery and forceful suppression of people. We should forbid all companies to take this kind of dirty money. But because we don't do that at the moment companies who don't take this dirty money will have a disadvantage against companies that do. And because companies are all about money, in the end they are basically forced to act against their good intentions, just to survive.

We as society have to stop this. We must make sure, that companies who are not taking dirty money survive the competition. My idea would be to extend the rules for money laundering to all countries that are dictatorships. But there might be other ideas, to level the playing field between companies, so we as society can help them to make the right decision.

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

#890

Post by learingsci »

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…

I remember when people said the exact same thing about Google. Youth is wasted on the young.
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