Thread

U.S. appeals court upholds designation of Anthropic as supply chain risk

499 points · 900 comments · cramer4next

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. jzb · 1790359108 · focus · HN ↗
  “the military said no and therefore doesn't want anthropic used anywhere in their supply line”
  It’s clearly a punitive measure and has nothing to do with national security.
  If a supplier uses Anthropic to develop a product, how does that pose a risk to the DoD or national security? The DoD can specify that a third party system can’t rely on Anthropic for DoD use without designating the company a supply risk. It was very clear that the administration was punishing the company for saying “no”.
  1. frumplestlatz · 1790359216 · focus · HN ↗
    Anthropic took the position that our military’s decision making power should be subordinate to Anthropic’s constraints.
    Any dependency on a company that thinks they have that moral authority and has the technical means to enforce it is absolutely a risk to the supply chain.
    If you want to blame someone or something for this, we should start with Dario and “effective altruism”.
    testdelacc1 · 1790361771 · focus · HN ↗
    But why can’t the military just not use Anthropic? Why can’t the DoD say “ok we’re going with a different vendor”? Even if you find Anthropic’s stance distasteful, why support taking punitive action on Anthropic?
    satvikpendem · 1790366619 · focus · HN ↗
    I feel like in this thread no one is understanding what supply chain risk designation is. The government can just not use Anthropic, and that's exactly what they're doing, and they are not using it so much that they don't want Anthropic anywhere in their chain of supply. It's not necessarily punitive, the government is just covering their tracks so that if somewhere in their supply chain Anthropic exists, they want to remove them. They are complying with Anthropic's demands to not be used in war and the DoD says, okay, we won't use you anywhere and also enforce that we won't use you, just like you wanted.
    Jtsummers · 1790366965 · focus · HN ↗
    > They are complying with Anthropic's demands to not be used in war
    There was no such demand from Anthropic. Why are you making things up?
    EDIT: Honestly, the rest of your comment is even stranger. You're starting from a false premise, a strange belief about what the designation is meant for, but you do end up providing a wonderful demonstration of your opening sentence for yourself at least. You definitely don't know what you're talking about.
    > It's not necessarily punitive, the government is just covering their tracks so that if somewhere in their supply chain Anthropic exists, they want to remove them.
    This reminds me of an old comment here where some idiot claimed that suicide is illegal so police are allowed to stop people from killing themselves. No, if Anthropic doesn't want their systems involved in war (that's a thing you made up, again, just to be clear) then they do not need to be designated a supply chain risk to "protect them" or whatever drivel you come up with next.
    The correct response from the DOD would be to terminate contracts with Anthropic, and that's it. Then Anthropic would be responsible for ensuring that any contracts with other parties keep them out of war (again, not a thing they said they want, just your fiction). This is how it works for all other software systems where people don't want their work involved in wars or used by the police or whatever.
    Designating them a supply chain risk was punitive. Only fools think otherwise.
    > I feel like in this thread no one is understanding what supply chain risk designation is.
    I wouldn't say "no one" understands, but you certainly don't.
    satvikpendem · 1790370373 · focus · HN ↗
    Again with the lack of understanding why it matters. The DoD does not want Anthropic anywhere near any system they'd use! Because it's, well, a risk to their supply chain if Anthropic were to somehow find out and then e.g. crash a rocket if the DoD was using a third party rocket provider that used Anthropic models. This is the correct response by the DoD, they simply do not want Anthropic in their supply chain. The DoD don't care what Anthropic comes up as reasoning, they want to maintain control of their systems without any (even potential) meddling.
    Jtsummers · 1790371240 · focus · HN ↗
    You failed to address my initial question.
    Why did you make up false claims about Anthropic not wanting their systems to be used for war? They're clearly fine with it, but they wanted human-in-the-loop on decision making. They never asked to not have their systems used for war.
    > Again with the lack of understanding why it matters.
    It's cool that you were able to open this with at least one sentence containing some useful wisdom. A lack of understanding does, in fact, matter.
    > The DoD does not want Anthropic anywhere near any system they'd use!
    Nah, the DOD is punishing Anthropic for not agreeing to change the terms of the contract and allow them to use Anthropic's systems to determine, without a human-in-the-loop, who to kill or what to target and to use their systems for mass surveillance.
    > Because it's, well, a risk to their supply chain if Anthropic were to somehow find out and then e.g. crash a rocket if the DoD was using a third party rocket provider that used Anthropic models.
    What the fuck man. You went from (in your first comment) the DOD is helping Anthropic out by designating them a supply chain risk because it'll keep them out of war (again, a fiction, that isn't what the dispute was over), to now the DOD is worried that Anthropic might throw a tantrum and start crashing rockets if they find out.
    Again, Anthropic does not mind their systems being used for war. They sold their systems to be used for war. They have specific, already existing (not changed later) contractual statements about how they can be used for war. That's it. That's the fucking dispute.
    > This is the correct response by the DoD, they simply do not want Anthropic in their supply chain.
    No. Just like Anthropic wanted (or were fine with) their systems being used to conduct war, the DOD actually does want Anthropic's systems in their supply chain. But they want it without restrictions. Stop making shit up.
    > The DoD don't care what Anthropic comes up as reasoning, they want to maintain control of their systems without any (even potential) meddling.
    Now this is a true sentence. The DOD does not care as long as they can access the systems without restrictions. I can't believe you wrote that sentence and the one before, though. They are entirely incompatible. It cannot be the case that DOD does not want Anthropic in their supply chain and that they do want it in their supply chain.
    satvikpendem · 1790371885 · focus · HN ↗
    People who quote every sentence as if they feel the need to reply to each one instead of the overall point are quite annoying to talk to, just to let you know for the future.
    > Why did you make up false claims about Anthropic not wanting their systems to be used for war? They're clearly fine with it, but they wanted human-in-the-loop on decision making. They never asked to not have their systems used for war.
    That's what I meant, as I left out the "human in the loop" part as that was well understood in the context of the argument, but perhaps not. Anthropic does not want to be used in autonomous systems and thus the DoD agrees that they will not be, in their own supply chain. This is was all quite clear from my point but you felt the need to quote every single sentence and then ask the same question each time because you were starting from a faulty supposition, just wasting your time and mine.
    Jtsummers · 1790372952 · focus · HN ↗
    > People who quote every sentence as if they feel the need to reply to each one instead of the overall point are quite annoying to talk to, just to let you know for the future.
    There are a lot of twits on this site (and to your credit, so far you don't seem to be one of them) who will edit their comments so that replies like mine (if I had left out the quotes) turn into non sequiturs, or worse appear unhinged and detached from anything going on in the discussion. Again, to your credit you have not yet edited your original comments. But I have learned to not trust even long time commenters on this site. Even some very high karma commenters will behave like that.
    If it annoys you, then that's fine. I'm not terribly bothered.
    > That's what I meant
    But that's not what you wrote. You wrote:
    >>> They are complying with Anthropic's demands to not be used in war
    If you had meant what I wrote, then you couldn't have gotten much further away from it with your original comment. You wrote too broadly about what Anthropic wanted and created a fiction instead. You shouldn't be surprised to be called out for it when you do something like that.
    > because you were starting from a faulty supposition
    No, I started with your words. If you wanted me to start with something else, I could have, like you, imagined other words to reply to. But I chose to reply to what you wrote, not what you apparently want people to imagine you wrote.
    (Hey! I didn't quote every sentence, is this less annoying for you?)
    satvikpendem · 1790379409 · focus · HN ↗
    Context exists, it is rational to assume to not have to spell everything out for readers who already know what the context is instead of those coming to the thread with a tabula rasa. Regardless, have a good day.
    ExoticPearTree · 1790416882 · focus · HN ↗
    > They're clearly fine with it, but they wanted human-in-the-loop on decision making.
    And the Pentagon does not want that. Plain and simple.
    And now Anthropic is learning the hard way what happens when you say no to the Pentagon.
    It is truly mind boggling that anyone thinks Anthropic can dictate terms to the military.
    satvikpendem · 1790442480 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes I really don't understand these sorts of replies people are making, it's like a missile manufacturer determining where and how their missiles can be used and bricking them mid flight if they detect they're going to a forbidden destination.
    ncruces · 1790371930 · focus · HN ↗
    And thus, every supplier of the DoD is prohibited from asking Claude to tweak the CSS on their website.
    satvikpendem · 1790372087 · focus · HN ↗
    Indeed, probably for the best, even. You don't know what systems Claude will have changed in the code especially as these days people aren't even reading the code and Anthropic has a history of trying to sabotage others' code such as during the Fable release debacle where they outright said they'd do so if you're working on frontier AI for example. I wouldn't let any sort of company like that anywhere near critical systems.
    ncruces · 1790372361 · focus · HN ↗
    The point is: using Claude to design a website, do accounting, run a marketing campaign, is not a supply chain risk for the DoD, but taken literally and given the scale of the DoD "no DoD supplier can use Claude for anything" clearly is punitive.
    satvikpendem · 1790372558 · focus · HN ↗
    It is, because the DoD doesn't know what the contractor is doing with Claude, or what Claude is doing itself. Like I said Anthropic could just as maliciously sabotage if they detect they're being in autonomous systems, why do people seem to believe they couldn't?
    ncruces · 1790372978 · focus · HN ↗
    The DoD can require contractors not use Claude to do whatever they're being contracted to do.
    It doesn't need to say if you do any business with Anthropic (for other customers, internal tools or processes), you lose all your contracts with us.
    satvikpendem · 1790379301 · focus · HN ↗
    How do you know the contractors will follow that and not mix information or systems up? Hasn't there been recent news of rogue agents breaking out of sandboxes? Maybe pre AI I would've agreed with you but the world is different now.

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