Thread

1. ApolloFortyNine · 1790356118 · focus · HN ↗

   I know everyone says this is political but it actually seems like a textbook designation. Anthropic wanted to have rules on how the military used AI, the military said no and therefore doesn't want anthropic used anywhere in their supply line.

   This is like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike orders, now the military needs to have a special box of pens that don't have stipulations attached. With AI usage it would be the same thing except applied to entire product chains. It seems like it would just add more complexity to operations.

   You can agree with the rules anthropic wanted, but having rules set by a private company at all that apply to the military does seem fair for the military to object to.

   >The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary

   Though they'd probably put the DoD on the cybersecurity whitelist today, the very idea of the claude whitelists for certain functionality already exists and is being used by them today.

   1. wand3r · 1790357520 · focus · HN ↗

      > This is like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike order

      I am pretty receptive to the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, but we are taking a big leap from pen to llms/artificial intelligence. I am sympathetic to some of your other points, but I simply must reject this analogy.

      1. superxpro12 · 1790358780 · focus · HN ↗

         "the government wants to use our tool to murder people", and declaring that company that says "no" into a "supply chain risk" is absolutely retaliatory and an attempt by the government to influence the behavior of the company.

         The moral and ethical scale of the issue makes this far different than someone buying a pen.

         1. palmotea · 1790361523 · focus · HN ↗

            > "the government wants to use our tool to murder people", and declaring that company that says "no" into a "supply chain risk" is absolutely retaliatory and an attempt by the government to influence the behavior of the company.

            If Lockheed could brick its planes if the US planned to use them for military action it disagreed with (and showed some indication they couldn't be trusted not to do it), would they be a supply chain risk?

            It is not the role of a defense contractors to have oversight and control power over the military they're supplying.

            1. rockskon · 1790367494 · focus · HN ↗

               The military could just use different AI models for the purposes Anthropic does not want its models used for.

               Purposes Anthropic already spelled out in contract form.

               1. firesteelrain · 1790368851 · focus · HN ↗

                  Correct so what’s wrong with that? Plenty of open weight models to use

                  1. Scramblejams · 1790444230 · focus · HN ↗

                     Open weight doesn't mean they won't resist tasks.
      2. adamrezich · 1790358801 · focus · HN ↗

         Ridiculous hypothetical for analogy purposes, but, imagine if Anthropic had developed a new type of rifle that the military was considering using, which had a black-box AI system that could prevent the trigger being pulled when aimed at certain targets. The military says, ok that's cool, as long as we can be in control of that decision-making process. Anthropic says, no, we know better than you and better than the law what kind of targets should and should not be shot with our rifles. The military would then respond “lol, lmao even” and then deem them to be a supply chain risk and adopt another rifle instead.

         1. TSiege · 1790359032 · focus · HN ↗

            You’re just describing the exact situation we’re in but substituting a drone for a rifle. If the government is mad they should just partner with a contractor who is less concerned about this, which lo-and-behold they did it’s a company called OpenAI.

            Anthropic isn’t a supply chain risk since they easy found someone else

         2. junofan · 1790359196 · focus · HN ↗

            That’s not even the end of the story. Anthropic has sued. They really want to sell their rifles to the government and retain control.
         3. wrs · 1790360193 · focus · HN ↗

            Or they could just not buy the product in the first place. The supply chain risk part is pure retribution.

            1. frumplestlatz · 1790361766 · focus · HN ↗

               That’s literally what they’re doing. That’s what supply chain risk means.

               They don’t buy the product, and the product can’t be used in the things they do buy.

               1. tsimionescu · 1790370196 · focus · HN ↗

                  No, it's not. If Anthropic is a supply chain risk, that means that if you are working on a project that will be used for the DoD, you can't use Claude or any other Anthropic product for any purpose whatsoever in that project. Asked Claude to change the color of a PPTX for a sprint demo you're doing? Oops, you've know introduced a supply chain risk and your company is liable for damages or at least losing its entire contract with the DoD.

                  1. IcyWindows · 1790381029 · focus · HN ↗

                     The problem is if they used it for a slide, they could have used it to design a part or code or something else.

                     These blanket rules are very typical in large organizations.

               2. wrs · 1790461429 · focus · HN ↗

                  [delayed]
            2. smsm42 · 1790363394 · focus · HN ↗

               Supply chain risk ensures nobody in the chain is buying it and thus becoming subject to Antropic's demand of usage control. They are still free to use it for non-DOD purposes, but if Antropic wants control over DOD, DOD has the right to say "no, we won't have anything to do with you, and thus you're not getting any control over us". I agree it may be unpleasant for Antropic but DOD has the right - I'd say even responsibility - to not submit to control by any private party.
         4. hiddencost · 1790368875 · focus · HN ↗

            No, they would simply not buy it.

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