[19123127]

Why did they work with Palantir then, which is the integrator in the DoD? It does not take a genius to figure out where this was going.

I don't know why a personal testimony to the effect that "these are the good guys" needs to be at the top of every Anthropic thread. With respect to astroturfing and stealth marketing they are clearly the bad guys.

[margalabargala]

Anthropic's stance is "we believe in the use of our tools, with safeguards, to assist the defense of the US".

So of course they would work with Palantir to deploy those tools.

The issue we're seeing is because the DoW decided they no longer like the "with safeguards" part of the above and is trying to force Anthropic to remove them.

[oefrha]

They are pretty clear about this:

> the mass domestic surveillance of Americans

This they say they don’t like. The qualifiers tell you they’re totally fine with mass surveillance of Palestinians, or anyone else really, otherwise they could have said “mass surveillance”.

> fully autonomous weapons

And they’re pretty obviously fine with killing machines using their AI as long as they’re not fully autonomous (at the moment, they say the tech is not there yet).

All things considered they’re still a bit better than their competitors, I suppose.

[lebovic]

Others have addressed the first half of your comment, so I'll focus on the astroturfing claim.

While I've talked a lot about Anthropic this week, if I was astroturfing for a positive image, I'd be very bad at it [1][2][3].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150170

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47163143

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47174814

[jrflowers]

It doesn’t seem like anybody has addressed “If they are the good guys with principles why did they work with Palantir?”

There’s a comment that’s sort of handwaving and saying “because America”, but I would imagine that someone with direct knowledge of the people involved would have something more substantive than “thems the breaks” when it comes to working with Palantir

[prescriptivist]

Anthropic makes it kind of clear in all of their statements that they are not opposed to working with the surveillance state, with the military industrial complex, etc. Their central philosophy, it seems, is not incongruent with working with entities, public or private, that can be construed as imperialist or capitalistic or a combination of both. I actually appreciate their honesty here.

They exist within the regime of capital and imperialism that all of us who are American citizens exist within. This isn't a cop-out or cope. It's just the reality of the world that we live in. If you are an American and somehow above it, let me know how you live.

[jimmydoe]

The further away from God, the more need to believe there are good guys.

[Sl1mb0]

God has been used as a justification for a lot of human suffering.

My personal belief is that the closer to god you are; the more easily you can justify evil. How could you not? If my entire belief system is derived from faith, then there are *no* conclusions I could not come to, and therefore anything can be justified.

[scrubs]

>further away from god

What is that? Some new bit you're working on?