vying for slightly better contract terms
Do you mean that all this about principles is a smoke screen and Anthropic are just using it as a front to squeeze for more money?
Comment on Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks
revolutionaryvole@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I guess it’s good that they draw the line somewhere, but it is absolutely horrifying to me as a non-American that the moral stance is limited to:
- taking issue with fully autonomous AI weapons (purely for technical reasons according to this letter, they are working hard on making them possible)
- refusing to conduct mass surveillance of US citizens specifically (foreign nationals are fair game and the intelligence apparatus will surely only be used for good and to preserve democracy).
This is not Anthropic refusing to cooperate with the Trump administration as the title may suggest, they are in fact explicitly eager to serve the US Department of War. They are just vying for slightly better contract terms.
scarabic@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
revolutionaryvole@lemmy.world 58 minutes ago
No, if you want my opinion it seems too risky of a move to make all of this so public if all they want is more money. It’s possible, but I’d be surprised.
I believe them when they say that what they want is to have those two particular things, fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of US citizens, removed from the contract terms (for now). This could be out of genuine moral principles, or out of fear of bad PR when this would be found out. Most likely a combination of both.
My point was that from my perspective it is a very minor difference. The conclusion I kept after reading this isn’t “good guy Anthropic bravely stands against pressure from Hegseth” as some of the Hackernews comments try to paint it. It is “Anthropic mostly bends over backwards and grovels for Pentagon money, willing to massively spy on all foreign nationals and working on creating autonomous weapons - other US AI companies likely to be even worse”.
As I said, horrifying.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
You’re spot-on. As some additional context, Anthropic is already working tightly with the US government. Until the recent announcement regarding Grok, Anthropic was the only approved AI for US government work, as it is/was the only one certified for safely woeking with classified data.
BanMe@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
And now they’re the only one banned from it.