[tgma]

[flagged]

[thewebguyd]

> completely understandable decision from a neutral third party PoV.

Except it's not, really. If Anthropic/Claude doesn't mean the DoD's need, they can and should just put out an RFP for other LLM providers. I'm sure there's plenty of others that'd happily forgo their morals for that sweet government contract money.

No US company has to provide services to the DoD or any other branch of government. It's not "veto power" it's being selective of who you do business with, which is 100% legal.

[tgma]

I don't understand your point here. Looks like what you suggest is exactly what is happening. US government did not ban Anthropic from conducting business in the US. They just don't want them to influence their own supply chain, 100% legal as you say.

[Me1000]

Then you go to another supplier. But any company with proper counsel will tell them the same thing: don't break the law, which is exactly what they're trying to coerce Anthropic into doing. DoD requests do not supersede the law.

[BLKNSLVR]

What is this "law" you speak of?

I understand 'goals' and 'means to an end', but this concept of "law" evades me.

[pron]

Not unless they're the sole supplier of the technology. They're saying, if you want to do this kind of thing - not with our product, but you can get it elsewhere.

[Analemma_]

No, you are the one lying trying to get political gotchas here. There is no "trying to exert veto power" absolutely anywhere, Anthropic's terms were laid out in the contract the Pentagon signed, which they want to forcibly amend. If they didn't like the terms, they didn't need to sign the contract.

[tgma]

What are you suggesting here? US government breaching the contract already signed? I am not aware of that happening here.

> Anthropic's terms were laid out in the contract the Pentagon signed, which they want to forcibly amend.

It's called negotiation in business. I am sure both sides are clear-eyed on what the consequences were and Anthropic made a calculated bet (probably correctly) that some segment of their employee/customer base would get wet by hearing this news and it more than offsets the lots business, thus is worth it.

[gip]

Or worse: train the AI to make decisions that align with the view of Anthropic management and not the elected government. Workout telling anyone.

I’d agree it is a serious risk.

[verdverm]

The government is supposed to represent the people and their will, not dictate

The current government is deeply unpopular, it's only going to get worse for them.

[cholantesh]

This rather implies that simply being elected casts a binding on officials that forces them to pursue popular will with their mandate.