[grey-area]

This has much broader implications for the US economy and rule of law in the US.

If government procurement rules intended for national security risks can be abused as a way to punish Anthropic for perceived lack of loyalty, why not any other company that displeases the administration like Apple or Amazon?

This marks an important turning point for the US.

[heresie-dabord]

> much broader implications

Setting aside the spectacular metastasis of a lawless kakistocracy that is literally rewriting the facts on record...

Anthropic's leadership has wisely attempted to make it clear that its product is not fit for the US DoD's purpose/objective, which is automated killing at scale.

It would be (is) grossly, historically negligent to operate weapons with LLMs. Anthropic built systems for a thuggocracy that only understands bribery, blackmail, and force.

[herval]

this entire administration has been a constant stream of "important turning point for the US" moments

[grey-area]

That’s true and it’s not over yet, wait till he reaches the thousand year reich bit.

[ericmay]

I think most, perhaps all of those "important turning points" aren't really important turning points but just business as usual.

[busko]

Yep, where does your trust lay now? It's been a minute of pretending it'll be okay.

[adventured]

Nothing has changed in decades regarding this. People just like to pretend something new is happening, because they're extremely desperate to proclaim a fundamental turning / ending of the US (which is why every single event brings out those claims: this time is different! America will never recover from this! etc).

US tech companies were previously forced into compliance with PRISM or threatened with destruction (see: escalating fines to infinity against Yahoo, forcing their eventual compliance).

You know what's new? This administration is doing out in the open what used to go on quietly.

[bambax]

The turning point happened when Trump was reelected. One could argue the turning point happened Jan. 6 2020 and nobody truly cared. The consequence should have been for all insurrectionists and Trump himself to be tried for treason and be imprisoned indefinitely. Yet here we are.

[jmull]

> The consequence should have been for all insurrectionists and Trump himself to be tried for treason and be imprisoned indefinitely.

People have this intuitive sense that there's some kind of authority of truth or justice, an available recourse that we could've and should've used.

But that sense is incorrect.

What we actually have the political and justice systems that Trump and his adherent have, so far, quite successfully subverted.

[childintime]

It was when the supreme court judged he could act like a king, the summer before he was elected, inventing things the constitution never said and setting the example of lawlessness Trump now follows up on confidently.

[shevy-java]

I'd agree - Trump fulfils the criteria of treason.

It's interesting to see that nothing happens despite this. Now he started another war to distract from his involvement in the huge Epstein network. Also, by the way, quite interesting to see how many people were involved here; there is no way Ghislaine could solo-organise all of that yet she is the only one in prison. That makes objectively no sense.

[ricksunny]

turning point? The episode is literally playing out the AEC's (read: war-footed government) 1954 Oppenheimer security-clearance hearing in real-time for a fresh modern-day audience.

[coldtea]

Rather it's business as usual.

[codyb]

What? Lol, they've been doing that the entire time. They're very open about the playbook lol.

Bow down, or get harassed, sued, investigated, fined, etc.

[alopha]

Trump was threatening Netflix for having a democrat on the board last week. They seized 10% of Intel. They forced Nvidia to tithe 25% of China revenue into a slush fund. The FCC has been used to censor comedy. The ship has sailed and the only consequence has been hand-wringing.

[khalic]

Yeah the passivity of the US population will be remembered for generations. Of course it's the people talking about freedom the most that do the least, as usual, big mouths are antithetical to actions.

[pjc50]

But the Dow is over 50,000!

That is, the money doesn't care so long as it's still profitable. When the recession comes a Democrat will be allowed back in to fix things.

See Liz Truss.

[selimthegrim]

15%?

[chazftw]

Actually it doesn’t. Always been that way, the new generation hasn’t studied history as they should.

[queenkjuul]

Neither did the last one

[pineaux]

Its called corporatism and is a part of classical fascism.

[deepsquirrelnet]

Isn’t there some kind of term for when the government controls the means of production. I’ll think about it. It’s one of those terms that’s been thrown around so loosely by this regime you knew they were going there.

[goodpoint]

It's a core part of fascism.

[goku12]

I don't see a good reason to downvote you, though that's a pattern here these days. But I do have a question about your statement. This move certainly has the hallmarks of fascism. But how is it corporatism when it's the elected government that's trying to punish a corporation? Granted that this regime is deep in the pockets of the corporations and billionaires. But it looks like they would have spared Anthropic if they capitulated to the regime's demands and bent their back over. This seems more like retribution for refusal of loyalty rather than corporate sabotage.

[throawayonthe]

*capitalism ftfy

[miki123211]

The same is true about Meta and US antitrust law, or the GDPR and DMA in Europe.

Governments should not be permitted to introduce regulations against companies of this kind if the regulations can be enforced selectively and with regulator discretion, as the GDPR and antitrust definitely are. The free-speech implications are staggering.

[keybored]

Corporations learn about “first they came for [Apple Inc.] but I am not [Apple Inc.] so I didn’t do anything”.

[iso1631]

Not really a turning point, the US has been turning for months, ever since the felatio of inauguration. This is just another rung on the ladder

[rambojohnson]

outside of just the tech sector, this country has already crossed MANY irreversible turning points. also, good luck with your midterm elections. we have started war with Iran. cheers from Barcelona from this American refugee.

[jmyeet]

This isn’t new. Maybe some people are just now realizing it.

Take the stated tool for this action, the Defense Production Act ("DPA") [1]. It was passed in 1950. What does it cover? Well, lots of things. The DPA has been invoked many times over 76 years.

Notably in 1980 it was expanded to include "energy", I guess in response to the 1970s OPEC Oil Crisis.

Remember during he pandemic when gas prices skyrocketed? As an aside, that was Trump's fault. But given that "energy" is a "material good" under the DPA, the government could've invoked it to tackle high energy prices and didn't.

So, the government is willing to invoke the DPA to protect corporate and wealthy interests, which now includes military applications of AI for imperialist purposes, but never for you, the average citizen. IT's weird how that keeps consistently happening.

The US government has consistently acted to further the interests of US corporations and the ultra-wealthy. You probably just haven't been paying attention until now.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act_of_1950

[atoav]

Well as I said in 2026 before Trump got elected the firdt time: Trump will ultimately lead to fascism.

And fascism famously tries to align its industries with the state.

Now I made that judgement in my 2016 based on what I have read about the man and his character. I grew up in an Austrian province that was during my youth lead by back then one of the first European new-right politicians (Jörg Haider). So let's say I knew the type and the dynamics that would emerge around figures like this including the rich people who think they can control him and so on.

Trump is a textbook narcissist and as such of course he is going to treat the companies like a narcissist treats any person. The competition you will get is one of who can act the most submissive, who can bribe him the best.

Needless to say this is a style of governance that is economically unsustainable. But anybody with a decent idea of world history could have seen this from miles away.

[rpcorb]

[deleted]

[c54]

Your language suggests you’re an ideological supporter of trump but I’m curious:

What exactly is being imposed by anthropic?

This is from the anthropic letter:

> We held to our exceptions for two reasons. First, we do not believe that today’s frontier AI models are reliable enough to be used in fully autonomous weapons. Allowing current models to be used in this way would endanger America’s warfighters and civilians. Second, we believe that mass domestic surveillance of Americans constitutes a violation of fundamental rights.

Do you see these views as “left wing”? Or what do you disagree with here?

[hirako2000]

It isn't a left wing stance though. It's standing for the constitution. At the cost of going against the illegal state demands.

Compliance with the DoD doesn't remove big tech's complicity.

[altmanaltman]

I would argue we're miles away from an important turning point, it's been turning so much since then, its basically a full circle now

[frogperson]

Im sorry to say the turning point has well passed. The US is a facist country with leaders who will flaunt the rule of law.

Please memorize the 14 points of fascism, you will see examples of this multiple times a day. Its ecerywhere.

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

[throawayonthe]

i genuinely do not understand why anyone is acting like this is something new; has this not been the status quo since forever?

futhermore this is kind of a naive framing painting the state as somehow separate from majority of the capital...

[cmorgan31]

Are you claiming it has been status quo for the US government to king make companies through the usage of the defense protection act when one entity refuses to remove safeguards? Do you have any examples or is this just the worldview that aligns with your own?

[gentoo]

Sure, the state has always had theoretical power to do this, but when was the last time something remotely like this actually happened?

[grey-area]

No, this is far from the status quo for US government, it is not ordinary corruption, nor is it going to stop here.

Trump and associates have used the machinery of state to attack their enemies, attacked and belittled the judiciary while trying to subvert it, and demanded fealty from large businesses under threat of destroying them. It is unprecedented, reckless and a very dangerous moment, unfortunately not just the US has to live with the consequences.

If you think it is business as usual you need to do some reading of history, specifically a century ago in Germany.