Hacker News.

The Department of War has stated they will only contract with AI companies who accede to “any lawful use” and remove safeguards in the cases mentioned above. They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.

Regardless, these threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.

It is the Department’s prerogative to select contractors most aligned with their vision. But given the substantial value that Anthropic’s technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they reconsider. Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters—with our two requested safeguards in place. Should the Department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions. Our models will be available on the expansive terms we have proposed for as long as required.

  • revolutionaryvole@lemmy.worldEnglish
    841·
    11 小时前

    I guess it’s good that they draw the line somewhere, but it is absolutely horrifying to me as a non-American that the moral stance is limited to:

    • taking issue with fully autonomous AI weapons (purely for technical reasons according to this letter, they are working hard on making them possible)
    • refusing to conduct mass surveillance of US citizens specifically (foreign nationals are fair game and the intelligence apparatus will surely only be used for good and to preserve democracy).

    This is not Anthropic refusing to cooperate with the Trump administration as the title may suggest, they are in fact explicitly eager to serve the US Department of War. They are just vying for slightly better contract terms.

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      27·
      9 小时前

      You’re spot-on. As some additional context, Anthropic is already working tightly with the US government. Until the recent announcement regarding Grok, Anthropic was the only approved AI for US government work, as it is/was the only one certified for safely woeking with classified data.

    • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
      511·
      9 小时前

      they are in fact explicitly eager to serve the US Department of War

      I suppose you are a party to their closed-door meetings then.

      • revolutionaryvole@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 小时前

        I am only going off of what they are saying in this very press release, which is filled with fawning over the Department and pleading to remain its contractors. That’s what I meant when I called it explicit, they advertise it in the letter we are currently discussing. A few excerpts:

        Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community.

        Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner.

        Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters

        We remain ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States.

        Yes, they have their reservations, but it is undeniable from the text that they WANT to serve the Department of War and are frustrated that it won’t give up on those two red lines.

      • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 小时前

        They wouldn’t be negotiating if they didn’t want the co tract to begin with. It’s not like they can’t tell from 100 miles off who they’d be getting into bed with. I’m glad to see they have some lines drawn they won’t cross, but it’s laughable for you to question that they didn’t want to be here in the first place.