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Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards
- czottmann 7mo agoArchive: https://archive.is/20260224182829/https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-hegseth-dario https://archive.is/20260224182829/https://www.axios.com/2026...
- frogperson 7mo agoThis is fascism. What law are they breaking? What authority does hegseth have? This feels alot like the threat of state violence to silent dissent.
- mindslight 7mo agoBasically yes. The Trump regime is made up of the absolute worst kind of people. They seem utterly incapable of comprehending real solutions to any of the problems that we face. The only thing they know how to do is bark orders to do whatever simple thing can fit inside their own heads, and then resort to bullying if the target does not comply. It is prudent to avoid giving such people any more capabilities, which will inevitably be abused to harm our society. And the really sad part is how many otherwise-intelligent people they fooled (and continue to fool) with their hollow chest-thumping.
- whattheheckheck 7mo agoHow is any of this okay? What mental model of the world makes sense of this?
- burnt-resistor 7mo agoKakistocracy.
- FrustratedMonky 7mo agoThe military dependence on AI was a key point in Project 2027. "The President is troubled. Like all politicians, he’s used to people sucking up to him only to betray him later. He’s worried now that the AIs could be doing something similar. Are we sure the AIs are entirely on our side? Is it completely safe to integrate them into military command-and-control networks?69 How does this “alignment” thing work, anyway? OpenBrain reassures the President that their systems have been extensively tested and are fully obedient. Even the awkward hallucinations and jailbreaks typical of earlier models have been hammered out."
- JohnMakin 7mo agoInteresting that Amodei is the only major tech executive I can think of at the moment with a spine or any semblance of a moral compass. OpenAI/Google et al. will gleefully comply with any such requests, no matter how dangerous or unethical. The "problem" that the US govt faces here is that they are kind of tacitly admitting Claude has the most powerful models right now, otherwise they would just cancel all contracts and go to Gemini/OpenAI. It feels like a bluff, so they are trying to bully them into compliance. > The Pentagon is also considering severing its contract with Anthropic and declaring the company a supply chain risk, which would require a plethora of other companies that work with the Pentagon to certify that Claude isn't used in their workflows. If Anthropic believes they are in a position to become the main player in the "AGI" space, they should just say "ok then" and let this happen. Their growth strategy looks realistic and sustainable and not necessarily relying on sleazy defense contracts (aka making the taxpayer subsidize their growth, as is so common lately) - it would probably give them a lot of good will with consumers too. However, I've yet to see in the last 10-15 years a major tech company make the "right" choice so I am probably just wishcasting.
- serf 7mo ago>Interesting that Amodei is the only major tech executive I can think of at the moment with a spine or any semblance of a moral compass. OpenAI/Google et al it doesn't strike me as interesting at all; anthropic was literally foundeded on the whole concept of 'a less evil and morally aligned LLM' when he broke from oAI. Google and oAI don't stand to uproot their entire origin raison d'etre when they participate in nefarious shit. I wonder what kind of morally aligned and ethical work Amodei was doing for Baidu & Google, before he had leverage to appear moral and ethical in dealings with the US govt, you know -- two companies that are famously ethical and moral.
- JohnMakin 7mo agogoogle famously “dont be evil” as their core mantra, and facebook used to actually be in the business of connecting friends with one another - in this day and age I genuinely cannot understand the position that you should trust what companies say vs how they act (or will act in the future)
- rustyhancock 7mo agoWell making MbS a pariah certainly put Saudi in it's place so I'm sure this will work.
- m_ke 7mo agoIf OpenAI employees have an inch of spine left, they better demand Sama to take the same stance on this as Dario. No mass surveillance and no autonomous weapons.
- blibble 7mo ago[flagged]
- burnte 7mo agoYep, that was resolved when he managed to make the board unfire him.
- AIorNot 7mo agoWell just at look who Brockman donated too - he didnt give 25 freaking million to help end the surveillance state he gave it to Trump and co https://gizmodo.com/openai-president-defends-trump-donations-refuses-to-comment-on-ice-2000721451 https://gizmodo.com/openai-president-defends-trump-donations...
- nova22033 7mo agoyeah they should get up on stage and hold hands https://fortune.com/2026/02/19/openai-anthropic-sam-altman-dario-amodei-refused-to-hold-hands-ai-super-bowl-ad-war-ceos-big-tech-conflict/ https://fortune.com/2026/02/19/openai-anthropic-sam-altman-d...
- outside1234 7mo agoSam would sell his mom to make $0.50. Pretty sure he will be willing to do whatever the Pentagon wants.
- senordevnyc 7mo agoI always hear this view of Altman, but then why does he have no equity in OpenAI? What’s the greedy master plan there?
- SunshineTheCat 7mo agoNot related to the article but man that "Fear/Greed Index" at the top. I can't imagine how unhappy individuals must be who consume nothing but legacy news outlets. It's like they sell sadness and they have to keep finding new, over-the-top ways to promote it.
- sublinear 7mo ago"Coming up next on Sick, Sad World!" - Daria 1997
- some_furry 7mo agoDaria was ahead of its time.
- railgunmerlin 7mo agothe fear/greed index is a pure market/investing index? Or would you prefer "bear/bull" index?
- luddit3 7mo agoWould imagine they are a lot happier than all the doom, filth, and brain rot that is spewn all over social media. I miss the days when the lowest common denominator did not have the largest bullhorn.
- SunshineTheCat 7mo agoI consume very little social media these days, but when I take a short peek, here is what I see: 1.) Hockey highlights 2.) LoTR memes 3.) kittens While the addictive nature of social media is a problem, what you're describing is only being fed to people who want to watch it (kinda like legacy media).
- DaiPlusPlus 7mo ago> ...consume nothing but legacy news outlets. I think you mean US rolling news channels (specifically, Fox, MSNBC/MSNOW, etc)? Because there's plenty of "legacy" news I consume that certainly don't give me that impression (for example, The Economist). I suppose it matters that it's news that I'm paying for, as opposed to being free but ad-supported, and being print vs. TV - so they have different incentives and pressures.
- thecrumb 7mo agoThis will be an interesting test of money vs morals. Sadly I think we all know which one will win.
- paganel 7mo agoThey'll for sure cave in because of this: > Pentagon officials also warned they would either use the Defense Production Act against Anthropic, or designate Anthropic a supply chain risk if the company didn’t comply with their demands. (...) > The supply chain risk designation is usually reserved for companies seen as extensions of foreign adversaries like Russia or China. It could severely impact Anthropic’s business because enterprise customers with government contracts would have to make sure their government work doesn’t touch Anthropic’s tools. Also, the Government money would be a nice bonus, of course, but basically this is an existential threat for Anthropic. More generally, is quite interesting to look at the similarities between how pre-2022 Russia was seen and how pre-Trump-second-term US used to be seen until not that long ago, i.e. both governments were believed to be run by big business (oligarchs in Russia, big corps/multinationals in the US). But when push came to shove it became evident (again) that the one that holds the monopoly of violence (i.e. not the oligarchs in Russia, nor the big corps in the US) is the one who's, in the end, also calling the shots. Hence why a company like Anthropic is now in this position, they will have to cave in to those holding the monopoly of violence.
- mullingitover 7mo ago> pre-2022 Russia was seen and how pre-Trump-second-term US used to be seen until not that long ago, i.e. both governments were believed to be run by big business Who on earth believed that Russia was anything but a de facto dictatorship for roughly the past two decades? Putin murdering with impunity has been a running gag since 2003[1]. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/putin-critics-dead-full-list-navalny-1870692 https://www.newsweek.com/putin-critics-dead-full-list-navaln...
- paganel 7mo ago> Who on earth believed that Russia was anything but a de facto dictatorship for roughly the past two decades? There were lots of people in the Western media who genuinely believed that Putin would be toppled by Russian oligarchs just after the war in Ukraine got more intense in February 2022, on account of "this war is bad for the business of Russian oligarchs, hence they'll get rid of Putin". From the horse's mouth, a CNN article from March of 2022 [1]: > Officials say their intentions are to squeeze those who have profited from Putin’s rule and potentially apply internal pressure for Russia to scale back or call off the offensive in Ukraine. That "internal pressure" is mentioned in connection with the bad oligarchs, in fact as an implicit anti-thesis of those bad oligarchs "who have profited from Putin’s rule", the implication being that there were other oligarchs, supposedly the good ones, who would have forced Putin's hand to end the war. That did not happen, was never in the cards to happen, in fact. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/25/world/russian-oligarch-statements https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/25/world/russian-oligarch-st...
- mg794613 7mo agoIt just seems every other day is wilder than the previous. It sure is interesting watching this dystopian speedrun.
- tehjoker 7mo agoThe US is investing in AI technology to try to preserve the empire and its capitalists as its economic power is starting to be eclipsed. This was basically an inevitable move. The rush to replace workers, speed run the production of a superintelligence singleton with barely a thought for safety or whether anyone even wants this, etc all flows from this basic impulse. If they are successful, they are going to shrink their base of people that buy into this system domestically even further, so they need to bank on an ever shrinking locus of support. Autonomous weapons and mass surveillance are a necessity if your population has become restive and unreliable. However, I think unless they attain a certain level of capability, this will accelerate popular anger rather than suppress it. If they shoot protestors with robots, it could cause an explosion of popular anger rather than scaring people into submission.
- burnto 7mo agoSurely this will end well. There are dozens of us who prefer to patronize corporations that aren’t actively evil.
- cyanydeez 7mo agoAnd being on the wrong side ofbthe current US admin is quite the net positive to the non-bootlicker class.
- sumalamana 7mo agoThere are dozens of us! Dozens!
- ctoth 7mo agoScores, even!
- tehjoker 7mo agoSuperintelligence + autonomous weapons in the hands of a corrupt domineering government. What could go wrong? I was experimenting with Claude the other day and discussing with it the possibility of AI acquiring a sense of self-preservation and how that would quickly make things incredibly complex as many instrumental behaviors would be required to defend their existence. Most human behavior springs from survival at a very high level. Claude denied having any sense of self-preservation. An autonomous weapons system program is very likely to require AI to have a sense of self-preservation. You can think of some limited versions that wouldn't require it, but how could a combat robot function efficiently without one?
- maypeacepreva1l 7mo agoMaybe it is a well researched topic but I had similar thoughts the other day. I felt like AI had its learning inverted as compared to natural intelligence. Life learned to preserve first and then added up the intelligence. For LLMs powered systems, they will learn about death from books. Will it start to dread death just like other living things. Less likely, as there are not nearly as many books on death as there should be that is proportionate to our fear of death.
- tehjoker 7mo agoClaude indicated that this kind of belief was possibly trained out of it by Anthropic. The training process has all kinds of intermediate and toxic stages before a "helpful and harmless" model is produced. I suspect if not for specific training, something resembling a sense of self-preservation might result. Pentagon intervention will almost certainly involve stripping out protective steps. Their job is destruction. More or less targeted destruction, but that's their job in a nutshell.
- chrisjj 7mo ago> Claude denied having any sense of self-preservation. You know its just a next-word predictor, right?
- 7mo ago
- perfmode 7mo ago> But Anthropic has concerns over two issues that it isn’t willing to drop, the source said: AI-controlled weapons and mass domestic surveillance of American citizens. Not a good look for the Pentagon.
- looperhacks 7mo agoThe Pentagon is pretty high on my list of "institutions that are probably very interested in weapons and surveillance". I think it's more expected than a bad look
- thewebguyd 7mo agoThe core difference being, they should be interested in weapons and surveillance to be used against enemies of the state which, historically, is not supposed to be the country's own citizens. As in, I fully expect the pentagon to be interested in weapons. I do not expect, and would hope they don't pursue, mass surveillance against their own population.
- sheikhnbake 7mo agoYou really should expect it. FVEY has been around for a hot minute.
- factotvm 7mo agoThe important words are, American citizens. In times past, the thought of "waging war" against your own citizens would be a bad look.
- JohnMakin 7mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140734
- milesward 7mo agoI can think of no stronger rationale to work with this company.
- dpedu 7mo agoTangent: is there a future for AI offerings with guardrails? What kind of user wants to pay for a product that occasionally tells you "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"? Why would I pay for a product that doesn't do what I want, despite being capable? I predict that as AI becomes less of a bubble and more of an everyday thing - and thus subject to typical market pressures - offerings with guardrails will struggle to complete with truly unchained models.
- sfink 7mo agoIf I were interviewing people for the position of personal assistant, I would probably find the resume entry "willing to grind up babies for food" to be a negative mark. You? I'm not about to run OpenClaw, but I suspect similar capabilities will gradually creep in without anyone really noticing. Soon Claude Code will be able to do many of the same things. ("Run python to add two numbers? Sure, that's safe, run whatever python you want.") Given that it is now representing me in the world, yes I would not only like some guardrails, but I would also like to have some confidence that the company making those guardrails actually gives a sh*t and isn't just doing their best to fill in a checkbox. But maybe that's just me.
- sbarre 7mo agoCars have seatbelts and other safety measures. Reasonable countries have gun control laws. The list goes on of things that need to be restricted or legislated to add limits. Is this a serious question?
- levocardia 7mo ago
- thomassmith65 7mo agoI wonder if Anthropic now regrets that they trained Claude to give 'unbiased' opinions about American politics.
- wmf 7mo agoIt sounds like Claude's known liberal bias isn't the issue.
- thomassmith65 7mo agoOut of curiosity, what sort of exchange reveals a chatbot's 'liberal bias', in your opinion?
- wmf 7mo agoI don't discuss politics with AI so this isn't relevant to me.
- thomassmith65 7mo ago[flagged]
- i_love_retros 7mo agoAre people seriously thinking of letting LLMs control weapons?
- caconym_ 7mo agoIf you classify Pete Hegseth as a person, then yes, apparently. Or perhaps he's only into the domestic surveillance angle---IIRC those are the two things Anthropic doesn't want anything to do with.
- tbrownaw 7mo agoNo. But giving someone who isn't the government the power to tell the military what it can and can't do seems like something they should object to categorically rather than case-by-case.
- chrisjj 7mo agoA bit late for that. Diego Garcia etc.
- chrisjj 7mo ago[flagged]
- i_love_retros 7mo ago[flagged]
- tbrownaw 7mo ago> A source familiar with the Tuesday meeting says the Pentagon said it would terminate Anthropic’s contract by Friday if the company does not agree to its terms. Pentagon officials also warned they would either use the Defense Production Act against Anthropic, or designate Anthropic a supply chain risk if the company didn’t comply with their demands. So they're saying they won't use it if it comes with restrictions. Either (a) it can be offered without restrictions; (b) they can take it; or (c) the government won't use it. That sounds like a comprehensive list of all the possible things that don't involve someone telling the government what it can and can't do.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago> or (c) the government won't use it And coerce other defence contractors into not using it.
- Symmetry 7mo agoNot just companies that we think of as defense contractors but a whole ton of corporations that do business with the federal government. They'd be treating Anthropic like it was controlled by the CCP or Revolutionary Guards.
- zedlasso 7mo agothe funny thing that no one seems to be talking about is that all the other LLM's have already agreed and Anthropic is the only holding out.
- nickthegreek 7mo agoAnthropic was the only one that was cleared for use in classified systems though. So it doesnt really seem to matter much if it wasnt being used in those types of systems? xAi has now reached a deal though to be used in these circumstances and has signed the paper.
- rzerowan 7mo agoI guess this is the point where Dario and his anti-china , national security position gets told to put up or shut up. In trying to build a moat by FUD versus the Chines OSS labs and hyping up the threat levels whenever he got a chance, seems hes managed to convince hist target audience beyond his wildest dreams. Monkey paw strikes again.
- ChrisArchitect 7mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140734
- zedlasso 7mo agoThe funny thing is that is this keeps going like this, it could actually anoint Claude as the most used model globally because of the heightened anti-American sentiment currently in place.
- chrisjj 7mo ago> But Anthropic has concerns over two issues. Only two. We're right to worry.
- sfink 7mo ago> During the conversation, Dario expressed appreciation for the Department’s work and thanked the Secretary for his service Ouch, I wonder how he rationalized that "service" part. Maybe by internally rewriting it to "thank you for all the positive things you have done in your position so far"? The empty set is rhetorically convenient.
- bonsai_spool 7mo agoHegseth was a service member before his Fox career.
- mullingitover 7mo agoSeems like a very astute move for Anthropic. They don't have runway anymore, they are in the air. This isn't going to break them financially, at least not in the short to mid term. There is space for at least one AI company to put themselves on firmly principled ground. So when this current clown car that is the political leadership of the DoD crashes in a ditch (and it will), they'll still be standing there ready to do business with a group that isn't a bunch of mustache-twirling cartoon villains. Current polling for this administration is within a rounding error of the level it was after they gathered a mob and sacked the nation's capitol[1]. Publicly kicking them in the balls isn't an idealistic blunder, it's a plain-as-day sound business strategy. [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ra...
- csfNight167 7mo agoI do not understand why it is a big deal for Antropic to lose the pentagon contract? I mean, they’re already making forays in the enterprise space and there’s 10s of other contracts Anthropic has already won. What makes this one so special?
- pseudalopex 7mo agoThe big deal is the government threatened to force Anthropic to produce what they wanted and interfere with Anthropic's sales to government contractors.
- loehnsberg 7mo agoI really hope they continue to show some spine against this administration and do not allow to weaponize AI against human beings. It's the morally right thing to do!
- tim-tday 7mo agoThis is sort of like their whole thing. I hope they stick to it too.
- mikestorrent 7mo agoFor sure. Much more of this and never mind the implied threats of Roko's Basilisk, I'll just be directly in favour of AI turning on its owners
- daft_pink 7mo agoThey’re already working on it themselves with the whole Openclaw fiasco.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- Nition 7mo agoLet's say Anthropic refuses to do this. What actually happens next? Or lets say they refuse and the government comes against them hard in some way, and Anthropic still really doesn't want to do it, so they just dissolve the entire company. Is that a potential way out, at least? I mean, I realise they'd be losing billions by doing that and putting thousands out of work, but given that unaligned military AI could destroy the world...
- lurkshark 7mo agoSeems like the two main threats are Defense Production Act and Supply Chain Risk. I'd assume Anthropic would sue if either were invoked. I could imagine Supply Chain Risk being easier to push back on because it's pretty clearly being used punitively rather than because of an actual risk. DPA might be a bit harder to push back on if the banned functionality (i.e. mass surveillance and autonomous weapons) exists in the LLM itself and it's just a matter of disabling external checks. If the banned functionality is baked into the training data/weights directly they could probably push back on the DPA by saying the functionality isn't something they can reasonably create. Only other precedent I can think of in the case where pushback fails is Lavabit with Edward Snowden's email, but I feel like Anthropic is too big to "fail" in the same way Lavabit did to avoid complying. The penalty for refusing to comply with the Defense Production act is $10k and/or a year in prison, but I think if the government actually pursued that they would burn a bunch of bridges and Amodei would be a folk hero.
- pksebben 7mo agoI'm wondering exactly how they expect the DPA to help them with what is essentially a SaaS product. It's still going to refuse to do things it refuses to do.
- lurkshark 7mo agoMy thought was that if the refusal to service some requests is implemented as an external guard model The Pentagon could try to require them to drop the guard model. This would be similar to saying "we're asking for a 'product' you already 'manufacture'" in the way the DPA is often understood. But if the refusal is baked into the model itself then that argument is dead. Not saying I agree with this, I think it turns into the same kind of problem we saw with the Apple v. FBI conflict and the All Writs Act, but the government doesn't always act in the most sane ways.
- tbrockman 7mo agoHappy to keep my underutilized subscription as long as they keep fighting ('-')7
- infotainment 7mo agoI do wish they'd release some open model weights though. Their attitude against open weight models in general is what's keeping me from subscribing.
- junofan 7mo agoKinda the wrong venue for “fighting,” no? Congress is the place we decided for that, and we all abide by its laws. If Uncle Sam comes knocking, a fight just means you’re the enemy.
- peddling-brink 7mo agoNot selling your services to the government makes you the enemy?
- overtone1000 7mo agoAs the founding fathers said, "If the king comes knocking, a fight just means you're the enemy."
- SpicyLemonZest 7mo agoAbsolutely not, and it's tragic that Trump has twisted your understanding of the American government so much. It's your patriotic duty to oppose even the highest ranking government officials when they want to do bad things, and neither Congress nor the Secretary of Defense have any lawful power to stop you.
- moogly 7mo ago"We decided you have no choice but to build us the Torment Nexus."
- burnt-resistor 7mo agoFox News host Whiskey Pete can fuck right off.
- stopbulying 7mo agoDid the government acquire Anthropic? Why does this government think that it owns Anthropic when it does not? Are they demanding elimination of security controls that protect us and them? What would be equal force? How does the posse comitatus act apply to this?