[TimorousBestie]

Article doesn’t demonstrate a good understanding of DoW’s relationship with contractors. Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars—well, this is what happens when you make a Faustian bargain.

> One option is to invoke the Defense Production Act. . .

> Another threat would be to declare Anthropic to be a supply chain risk. . .

The first is a wrist-slap that still gets the government what they want; the second is an existential threat to Anthropic. Their main partners are all “dogs of the military”. Microsoft, Intuit, NVIDIA: all government contractors. I can’t find one company that they have a working relationship with that doesn’t hold at least one govt contract.

The idea that Claude could alignment fake its way out of a change in contractual terms is silly. The DoW has all sorts of legal and administrative tools it can choose to leverage against contractors that fail to perform. Usually it doesn’t, because of a “norm” that says the private defense sector runs more smoothly when the government doesn’t try to micromanage it.

Remind me again how good this administration is at upholding norms?

[cogman10]

> Remind me again how good this administration is at upholding norms?

When it comes to killing and spying on people with flimsy justifications that's a pretty bipartisan norm. Hell, Anthropic isn't even saying they won't help the DoW do just that, they just want to make sure there's a human in the loop.

The "USA Freedom Act" [1], which made most of the Patriot act permanent, had bipartisan support.

I'm all for reversing the continual ramp up of the police state and the industrial military complex. We need to recognize, however, that it's being funded and pushed by both parties. Generally playing on fears of the scary other. (Muslim terrorists in 00s, Mexicans today).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act

[TimorousBestie]

You’ve egregiously misread me. I spelled out the norm that the DoW would be violating if they decided to make good on their threats.

> Usually it doesn’t, because of a “norm” that says the private defense sector runs more smoothly when the government doesn’t try to micromanage it.

My comment has nothing to do with Anthropic’s “moral” or “ethical” stance.

I also don’t see the point in both-siding this. The situation at hand is before Hegseth and Trump. I can’t even remember Biden’s SecDef’s name.

[kristjansson]

> Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars

The sold services to a willing counterparty at mutually agreed upon terms. And now the other side of that deal has recalled that they're Twelve and You're Not My Real Mom You Can't Tell Me What To Do, and so wishes they had agreed to different terms and is throwing a tantrum to attempt to force a change.

And that's Anthropic's fault? That's a risk they should have predicted?

[TimorousBestie]

> The sold services to a willing counterparty at mutually agreed upon terms.

Yeah, and the legal environment that contract was written in, which both parties were aware of during negotiation, defines the means by which those terms can be changed.

> And that's Anthropic's fault? That's a risk they should have predicted?

It is deeply funny to me to imagine that an AI company doing inference at an unprecedented scale could not see this coming.

Go ask Claude how usgov should act if a contractor preemptively refuses to deliver. What are the top five tools they could use to demand compliance?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

There is no "DoW". Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, are named by Congress. Just because the current administration wants to use a different name means nothing ... unless everyone just complies in advance. Will Congress actually rename it? Hard to say, but it doesn't seem very likely.

[mikkupikku]

"Defense" is a harmful euphemism that misleads the American public, so in this case I'm happy to humor the admins decision.

[troyvit]

Getting off-topic here but it was irritating that Anthropic's original announcement called them the Department of War. What was that even signaling?

[crystal_revenge]

This is such a silly point to argue over. From 1789-1947 we had a "Department of War", which then merged into "Department of Army" under the newly formed (in 1947) National Military Establishment (NME) which was changed in 1949 to "Department of Defense" because N-M-E sound like "enemy".

It's not like these names are part of some sacred part of American identity, and "defense" has always been laughable as a euphemism. The DoD refers to themselves as the DoW [0] now, so it's completely reasonably to refer to the department as DoW. And of all the places to put your political energy, defending a laughable euphemism of a name that was used because the previous iteration of the name sounded funny seems like a sub-optimal use of that a energy.

0. https://www.war.gov/

[TimorousBestie]

> There is no "DoW".

There’s no Obamacare either. Come on, this is about as pedantic as the “the DoD is not the Pentagon” debate downthread.

It’s a colloquial name, and how the executive branch wants everyone to refer to it. This forum isn’t an official document. Move on.

[bpodgursky]

The DoD can invoke the DPA on any company it wants. Not really sure how this becomes Anthropic's fault.

[TimorousBestie]

They knew what they were signing on to when they sought DoW funding. I guarantee Dario was briefed on the risks associated with high-profile govt contracting.