Thread

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

499 points · 900 comments · cramer4next

petcat · 1790353704 · 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. HarHarVeryFunny · 1790354633 · focus · HN ↗
  Evidentially not - Anthropic want to do business with the US military, but on their own terms, telling the military what they can and cannot use it for.
  1. hardbass · 1790354916 · focus · HN ↗
    Is that a problem? Are there any special rules (genuinely curious) that allow the military to hijack the management of a private firm?
    rayiner · 1790355972 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s not a problem. But it’s also not a problem for the DOD to decide that it doesn’t want to use anthropic or have its suppliers use anthropic for DOD matters. The DOD didn’t ban private citizens from using Anthropic. You can sell in your own terms but the DOD can also buy in its own terms.
    folocitoan · 1790370648 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    mpyne · 1790379775 · focus · HN ↗
    They're not allowed to use it for military work, precisely so that the military supply chain cannot be broken by an unaffiliated private contractor acting at its own behest.
    The Federal government often imposes terms on its contractors that specify what sub-contractors are allowed to do, including "flow down" requirements that ensure these terms are themselves enforced recursively all the way down to leaf suppliers.
    None of those amount to a ban, after all private companies are also able to do the same thing, and often do. E.g. when Apple requires its suppliers to pursue clean energy efforts as in <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/apple-advances-supplier-clean-energy-commitments/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/apple-advances-suppli...
    Turn_Trout · 1790499110 · focus · HN ↗
    > None of those amount to a ban
    Please check your facts. Hegseth originally stated that it would apply to ALL usage by companies that work with the military.
    [1] <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-declares-anthropic-supply-chain-risk/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-declares-anthropic-supp...
    mpyne · 1790564232 · focus · HN ↗
    And the fact is that he had to reverse that position because it was not supportable by the statutory law he was trying to use. So the DoW policy changed.
    I'm a big fan of checking the facts, which is why I encourage you to stay current on the discussion. Companies that do defense work are already familiar with the need to setup corporate structures to ensure that the blast radius of changes to FAR, DFARS, statutory requirements etc. don't reach the main corporate entity.
    Like, the whole term "defense industrial base" is a known category treated as "critical infrastructure" by the U.S. government for years now: <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/critical-infrastructure-sectors/defense-industrial-base-sector" rel="nofollow">https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure-security... and <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47751#_Toc192775742" rel="nofollow">https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47751#_Toc192775742
    The thing that is novel here is that requirements traditionally focused on protecting for undue linkage with potentially-hostile foreign sources are being applied against Anthropic. But it's also novel that Anthropic is trying to apply conditions of use restrictions through its contract with the military.
    I don't personally feel that's novel enough to warrant a ban across the whole supply chain, but that's been the net effect of quite a few other FAR and DFARS restrictions over the years, which have caused companies to either exit the defense space or avoid selling into it in the first place.

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