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

499 points · 900 comments · cramer4next

  1. petcat · · focus · HN ↗
    I still don't fully understand what this was about. It sounds like the DoD said they wanted unrestricted access to Anthropic's models, Anthropic refused, so the Pentagon declared that they wouldn't use them at all.

    Isn't this basically what Anthropic wanted?

    1. hiddencost · · focus · HN ↗
      No. This also means that no companies that work with th DoD can use anthropic models for any purpose.
      1. Jtsummers · · focus · HN ↗
        > This also means that no companies that work with th DoD can use anthropic models for any purpose.

        No, it does not mean that. I don't know why people have been making this claim. If you work for a company, let's call it X, and your work is not DOD related, let's say you work on a social media service, then X has no reason (from this designation) to prevent you from using Anthropic, it will not impact their defense contracts at all.

        1. SpicyLemonZest · · focus · HN ↗
          People have been making this claim because the Secretary of Defense personally issued a statement demanding that "no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic". We're not going to play this absurd game where government officials issue fascist instructions and we all pretend they said something more reasonable instead.
          1. Jtsummers · · focus · HN ↗
            Except you and many others are accepting what he said as if it were true, that statement is false. And hiddencost and others are just parroting it instead of describing the real situation.

            This designation means Athropic's systems can't be used in DOD work, but many companies that work with the DOD also do work outside that. That separate work is not restricted with respect to the use of Anthropic's systems. Repeating a lie as if it were true is just dumb, it helps spread that lie.

            1. wat10000 · · focus · HN ↗
              A statement about consequences made by someone in power is not a lie just because it goes beyond what the law says.
              1. Jtsummers · · focus · HN ↗
                [delayed]
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