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. tintor · 1790357052 · focus · HN ↗

      Non-sense. Pentagon has many many uses of AI besides autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance, which Anthropic doesn't restrict. ie: intelligence analysis, target selection, payroll, inventory, research, supply chain and logistics, medical, bureaucracy, ...

      1. frumplestlatz · 1790358986 · focus · HN ↗

         We cannot subordinate our military’s decision making power — in any arena — to a private company.

         Our military must also not be dependent on a private company that believes it has the moral prerogative to control our military’s decisions, and would have the technical capability to do so.

         1. hardbass · 1790359108 · focus · HN ↗

            No entity should have a right to dictate whether your private company does business with someone or not. The military can pound sand if they don't like your contract terms. That is if you believe in democracy and capitalism. If you don't, then it's not a problem to you.

            1. ahtihn · 1790373781 · focus · HN ↗

               Any private entity has that right though.

               I, as a person, can decide I won't do business with a company that uses Anthropic models for whatever reason. I can even decide I won't do business with a company that relies on suppliers that use Anthropic.

               This right applies to private companies too. Like Walmart could set contract terms that their suppliers aren't allowed to use AWS. The suppliers are free to accept those terms or not.

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