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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

#891

Post by FeloniousHam »

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, even if the company is pragmatic about achieving their goals.

Jonah Goldberg (speaking of foreign policy): "you've got to be idealistic about the ends and ruthlessly realistic about means."

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

#892

Post by Lutger »

dust42 wrote: post #744
whstl wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. At this level you don't just put out a statement of your personal opinion. This is run through PR and coordinated with the investors. Otherwise the CEO finds himself on the street by tomorrow. Whatever their motives are, it is aligned with VC, because if it is not then the next day there is another CEO. As the parent stated, this is not cynicism. I see this just rather factual, it is simply the laws of money…

Surely you mean the laws of shareholder capitalism. There are many things you can do with money, and only some of them are legally backed by rules that ensure absolute shareholder power.

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

#893

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

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 Saudis invest in many public US companies, does that make those companies
    less trust worthy?
Uhh.. yeah?

    we've seen a lot worse from many of their competitors
I think we should demand people do better than just being slightly above the worst.

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

#894

Post by 9dev »

culi wrote: post #458
mandeepj wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, there's no such thing as "Department of War". A department name change is legal/binding only after it's approved by the Senate. Senator Kelly is still calling it DoD (Department of Defense). > Mass domestic surveillance. Since when has DoD started getting involved with the internal affairs of the country? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...

They've already spent millions on the name change. It's also the original name of the department. IMO it's a more honest name

It doesn't matter how much they've spent, nor what you think. Renaming it requires congressional approval, which they have not gotten.

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

#895

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

raincole wrote: post #757
tootie wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also downstream of voters who voted in a president who promised to be dictatorial after failing at an attempted insurrection. We need to deprogram like 70M very confused people.

> We need to deprogram like 70M very confused people With this mindset the said group will quickly grow to half of the US population.

You seem angry about being called out here. No, it won't grow to half the population since the existing support keeps shrinking over time.

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

#896

Post by zer0gravity »

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…

The probability is high that major AI development companies are already using an AI instance internally for strategic and tactical decisions. The State power institutions, especially intelligence, are now having a real competitor in the private sector.

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

#897

Post by 9dev »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #464
mandeepj wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, there's no such thing as "Department of War". A department name change is legal/binding only after it's approved by the Senate. Senator Kelly is still calling it DoD (Department of Defense). > Mass domestic surveillance. Since when has DoD started getting involved with the internal affairs of the country? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...

www.defense.gov redirects to www.war.gov but I like how you refer to Wikipedia as the authoritative source to prove this functionally irrelevant and aggressive Reddit-style seething. The talk page on the linked Wikipedia article arguing about logos is just as deranged. It's very important to realize there is literally nothing you—or anyone else—can do about this.

> It's very important to realize there is literally nothing you—or anyone else—can do about this.

What an utterly bewildering statement. So your suggestion is to suck it up, because we're all impotent anyway? The only thing that can bring authoritarian systems down is civil resistance.

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

#899

Post by psychoslave »

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…

People uttering the organizational decisions in for profit companies are money driven first. Otherwise they would try to be champion of a different kind of org.

Everyone try to make changes move so it goes well, for some party. If someone want to serve best interest of humanity at whole, they don't sell services to an evil administration, even less to it's war department.

Too bad there is not yet an official ministry of torture and fear, protecting democracy from the dangerous threats of criminal thoughts. We would be given a great lesson of public relations on how virtuous it can be in the long term to provide them efficient services, certainly.

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

#900

Post by qup »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #385
helaoban wrote: post #106

All 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…

> The technology can just be requisitioned, there is nothing a corporation or a private individual can do about that. I strongly doubt this is true. I think if you gave the US government total control over Anthropic's assets right now, they would utterly fail to reach AGI or develop improved models. I doubt they would be capable even of operating the current gen models at the scale Anthropic does. > Or the models cou…

> Remember when they couldn't even build a proper website for Obamacare?

With a massive budget, too. Hundreds of millions iirc.

It felt like a website that the small web-dev shop I worked for could build without much problem in a couple months.

We didn't have 200 layers of beauracracy, though.

That said I don't doubt the military could take their current tech and keep it running. It's far different from the typical grift of government contractors.

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