[arjie]

I think the differences in this situation were that I do not want AI used in domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons, and Anthropic holds to that position.

I think Donald Trump has pretty much let Zohran Mamdani operate without applying the kind of political pressure he has applied to other people, notably his predecessor Eric Adams. Also, I think saying "let people be your allies when they take your position" is less "grandiose and noble" than demanding someone agree on all counts before you will accept any political alignment. But it's fine if everyone else disagrees. It's possible there really just isn't a political group which will accept my views and while that's unfortunate because it means I can't get all that I want, I think it'll be okay.

One could reasonably argue that the meta-position is to either join the Republicans full-bore (somewhat unavailable to me) or to at least play the purity test game solely because that's the only way to have any influence on outcomes. If it comes to that, I'll do it.

[dralley]

You are making a mistake in thinking that Trump thinks of these things in political terms. Trump sees a charismatic and popular politician and he wants to associate with them on that basis alone, because Trump has a deep psychological need to be liked. Mamdani understands his psychology and is able to exploit it well by playing his own attributes to his advantage.

Politically, it's not like Trump tolerates dissent within the Republican party, he constantly threatens and berates anyone who shows defiance into submission. It's precisely because Mamdani is not in his tent and not really much of a threat to his power that he is willing to deal with him that way.

[fladrif]

I don't understand, your position is the same as Anthropic, yet you disagree with their stance?

And I wouldn't take the case of Trump and Mamdani as the exemplar of Trump's overall behavior towards opponents. The amount of evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

[arjie]

Anthropic's adherence to their stated principles was never tested and their willingness to work with DoD made it seem like they didn't stand by them strongly so I wasn't happy with that. This action shows that they are willing to lose big contracts in order to stand by their stated principles. I like that.

In any case, I think I've said all there is for me to say on the subject and everyone seems to disagree. I'll take the hint.