[rendx]

> OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its own morals into the use of its products.

Excuse me, but what a fucked up perspective. "Impose its own morals into the use of its products"? What happened to "We give each other the freedom to hold beliefs and act accordingly unless it does harm"? How on earth did it come to something where the framing is that anyone is "imposing" anything on another simply by not providing services or a product that fits somebody else's need? That sounds like you're buying into the reversed victim and offender narrative.

And this is not about whether one agrees with their beliefs. It is about giving others the right to have their own.

[coeneedell]

I have the right not to sell poison to someone who I have reason to believe will use it to kill a third party. The idea of simply trusting the patron to be responsible makes sense when the patron is anonymous or a new contact. It’s generally good to assume good intentions in the absence of evidence, I think. If the government is not anonymous enough to get this treatment.

[jxf]

Governments have a long, long history of using "poison to kill a third party", to use your analogy.

[marcellus23]

The GP's use of the word "impose" didn't seem perjorative to me or suggest that Anthropic is the offender and the government is the victim. I think you're reading a lot into a simple word choice and this response seems way too hostile.

[hn_throwaway_99]

A "simple word choice"?? This isn't just about the single word "impose", read the whole post:

> Per DoD Directive 3000.09 (dtd 25 January 2023), any use of AI in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems must undergo rigorous verification, validation, and testing to ensure they perform as intended in realistic environments before deployment. The emphasized language is the delta between what OpenAI agreed and what Anthropic wanted.

> OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its own morals into the use of its products.

So first off, regarding that first paragraph, didn't any of these idiots watch WarGames, or heck, Terminator? This is not just "oh, why are you quoting Hollywood hyperbole" - a hallmark of today's AI is we can't really control it except for some "pretty please we really really mean it be nice" in the system prompt, and even experts in the field have shown how that can fail miserably: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

Second, yes, I am relieved Anthropic wanted to "impose" their morals because, if anything, the current administration has been loud and clear that the law basically means whatever they says it does and will absolutely push it to absurd limits, so I now value "legal limits" as absolutely meaningless - what is needed are hard, non-bullshit statements about red lines, and Anthropic stood by the those, and Altman showed what a weasel he is and acceded to their demands.

[jdgoesmarching]

Are you really going to pretend that “impose their morals” is a completely value-neutral statement?

[ApolloFortyNine]

>Excuse me, but what a fucked up perspective. "Impose its own morals into the use of its products"?

>How on earth did it come to something where the framing is that anyone is "imposing" anything on another simply by not providing services or a product that fits somebody else's need?

The department of defense in particular has a law on the books allowing them to force a company to sell them something. They generally are more than willing to pay a pretty penny for something so it hardly needs used, but I'd be shocked if any country with a serious military didn't have similar laws.

So your right when it comes to private citizens, but the DoD literally has a special carve out on the books.

A lawsuit challenging it would have actually been insane from anthropic because they would have had to argue "we're not that special you can just use someone else" in court.

A more clear example would be, what would you expect to happen if Intel and amd said our chips can't be used in computers that are used in war.

[convolvatron]

buts it not a national emergency. its not a time of war. and there is a different between demanding to be customer, and demanding that you change your products because they would like them to be a different way. that is actual conscription.

for many decades, the DoD has used a carrot to get what they want. this is a stick.

[lkey]

I'd like to order one remedial first amendment education for this rage baiting user, who appeared fully formed from a conservative forum circa 2008.

[nickysielicki]

Nobody is saying that Anthropic has to shut down. They’re just saying that nobody taking government money can pay Anthropic for their service as a part of that contract. Anthropic still has the right to exist on their own terms, but their business model is based on rapidly-increasing enterprise subscriptions, which included public sector spending.

If Anthropic can survive on open source contributors shelling out $200/mo and private sector companies doing the same, the government wishes them well. But surely you agree the government has a right to determine how its budget is appropriated?

[specialp]

Well it depends. Being that the federal government constitutes 20% of the US economy, telling federal agencies you cannot contract with someone because they are adversarial to the USA is indeed pretty severe. When in reality they are not adversarial. We have no choice but to pay taxes and make the federal government 20 percent of our economy. There is no single company or any other entity that is close. And extending it to everyone who has a government contract probably makes it the majority of the economy. So it is not at all equivalent to a private company making a choice

[rootusrootus]

> But surely you agree the government has a right to determine how its budget is appropriated

I think the government doesn't have rights, it is my elected representative. And I do not agree with it trying to punish a company for not agreeing to contract terms.