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We Will Not Be Divided

notdivided.org

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Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#891

Post by queenkjuul »

thimabi wrote: post #68

The problem with forcing public policy on companies is that companies are ultimately made from individuals, and surely you can’t force public policy down people’s throats. I’m sure nothing good can come out of strong-arming some of the brightest scientists and engineers the U.S. has. Such a waste of talent trying to make them bend over to the government’s wishes… instead of actually fostering innovation in the very c…

Individuals at that company could have simply refused to do business with DoD in the first place, but that sweet murder money is too good to pass up

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#892

Post by [deleted] »

reactordev wrote: post #113
bottlepalm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What use are weights without the hardware to run them? That's the gate. Local AI right now is a toy in comparison. Nukes are actually a great example of something also gated by resources. Just having the knowledge/plans isn't good enough.

I run local models on Mac studios and they are more than capable. Don’t spread fud.

[deleted]

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#893

Post by xpe »

reactordev wrote: post #113
bottlepalm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What use are weights without the hardware to run them? That's the gate. Local AI right now is a toy in comparison. Nukes are actually a great example of something also gated by resources. Just having the knowledge/plans isn't good enough.

I run local models on Mac studios and they are more than capable. Don’t spread fud.

My take on the parent (^) and grandparent (^^):

>> Local AI right now is a toy in comparison.

Charitable interpretation: Local AI (unclear; maybe gpt-oss-120b) isn't nearly as good as SoTA (unstated; perhaps Claude Opus 4.6). Unstated use case(s).

> I run local models on Mac studios and they are more than capable. Don't spread fud.

Charitable interpretation: On their Mac studio (could be a cluster or single machine: unclear), local models (unclear; maybe gpt-oss-120b, maybe not) are capable for their needs. Unstated use case(s). / The "Don't spread fud." advocates for accurate information, which is a useful goal in general. However, it was uncharitable and brusque. An alternative approach would have been to ask a clarification question.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. - HN Guidelines

I promise I wrote this by hand. If you confidently thought otherwise, then I would kindly ask you to read my about page.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#894

Post by johnnyanmac »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #715
torben-friis wrote: post #151

Among other consequences, if Anthropic ends up being killed it’s going to be just another nail in the coffin of trust in America. Companies who subscribed will find themselves without an important tool because the president went on a rant, and might wonder if it’s safe to depend on other American companies.

Unfortunately, every country has a law somewhere saying it can take private property at will if it is in the national interest. It's not only the US being special in this case. The problem is pretty simple: there is money to be made and someone will do what the Pentagon wants. Will it be worse in capabilities than Anthropic? Probably, but as long as it can be used to wage autonomous war wherever the US military decid…

>It's not only the US being special in this case.

It's the US being special in how there's zero good reasoning behind any of this. A private company made a choice and it's retaliating like a spurned date.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#895

Post by iancmceachern »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #722
cityofdelusion wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a (bad) caricature of Americans, it’s not even very accurate of rural Americana or even Deep South rural. Most Americans just wake up, go to work, feed the kids, go to bed until they die, like most any other “first world” nation.

That's true but when specifically talking about gun ban laws they said it shouldn't be done because of being able to oppose a tyrannical government

Most people who own guns here view them as tools, not weapons. Tools to get food with, tools to defend their flock with, tools. Taking then away would be like taking away a shovel.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#896

Post by hdjrudni »

snickerbockers wrote: post #883
8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what anthropic said. They said their products won't fire autonomously, not that they will refuse when given order from a human.

"Hey Claude I need you to use this predator drone to go blow up everybody who looks like a terrorist in the name of Democracy."

Right, and it would go and target them but a person would have to press the button to launch the missiles.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#897

Post by ExoticPearTree »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #894
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, every country has a law somewhere saying it can take private property at will if it is in the national interest. It's not only the US being special in this case. The problem is pretty simple: there is money to be made and someone will do what the Pentagon wants. Will it be worse in capabilities than Anthropic? Probably, but as long as it can be used to wage autonomous war wherever the US military decid…

>It's not only the US being special in this case. It's the US being special in how there's zero good reasoning behind any of this. A private company made a choice and it's retaliating like a spurned date.

There is plenty of good reasoning executed badly from a PR perspective.

It is (now) called the Department of War for a reason: It needs to be able to kill people very fast and cheap. Autonomous weapons platforms do that: you give them a geofenced area and let them kill everything that moves in said area. No loss of human pilots, no fatigue.

If Anthropic they had any ethics concerns they would not have signed up the Pentagon as client in the first place.

My guess is that they wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#898

Post by jim33442 »

gentoo wrote: post #803
jim33442 wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic can certainly make the call to deny access this way, but then the US govt can choose not to make contracts with Anthropic. So what's the issue?

The whole reason this is a story is that the government won't just refuse to contract, it will put the equivalent of soft sanctions on the company because Anthropic refuses to contract.

The sanction is only that the federal govt won't do contracts with them. This doesn't stop Anthropic from doing business with anyone else.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#899

Post by Thorrez »

krapp wrote: post #755
Thorrez wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Would this "open letter" be covered on TV news?

The concept of "tv news" itself is pretty anachronistic, and the premise that nothing that would be covered on "tv news" should be of any interest to "good hackers" is a bit elitist. That guideline, like the rest of this forum, was written in the early 2000s, for what one could argue was an entirely different world than now, with an entirely different relationship between culture and media, and the assumptions it mak…

None of those links are about this "open letter". This open letter is by employees of OpenAI and Google, whereas those links are about what Anthropic.

Re: We Will Not Be Divided

#900

Post by engineer_22 »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #377
engineer_22 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act_of_1950 Great article, it has a list of times it's been used to compel cooperation.

Ok. So what's the emergency prompting them to take control of Anthropic? Further, why would they also accuse them of being a national security threat in the same breath? Seems like if they're a threat they're also not someone you want working on national security. Especially under duress. That feels like a bad combination.

Sorry buddy, I let this cool off because it wasn't going in a productive direction.

I have learned that other people are a mirror, if I cannot understand them, it's because there is something hidden inside me that I need to look for.

With respect to the original topic:

In my opinion, the Secretary of War and Anthropic are playing a power game. Whether we agree with their tactics or not, doesn't matter. Trying to understand why and how it's played, and the outcome, could be useful for predicting future power games.

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