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Google, OpenAI Employees Voice Support for Anthropic in Open Letter. We Will Not Be Divided https://notdivided.org/ https://notdivided.org/ ----- The Departme

Google, OpenAI Employees Voice Support for Anthropic in Open Letter. We Will Not Be Divided https://notdivided.org/ https://notdivided.org/ ----- The Department of War is threatening to - Invoke the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic to serve their model to the military and "tailor its model to the military's needs" - Label the company a "supply chain risk" All in retaliation for Anthropic sticking to their red lines to not allow their models to be used for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight. The Pentagon is negotiating with Google and OpenAI to try to get them to agree to what Anthropic has refused. They're trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in. That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand. This letter serves to create shared understanding and solidarity in the face of this pressure from the Department of War. We are the employees of Google and OpenAI, two of the top AI companies in the world. We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War's current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight. Signed,

eric-burel 8mo ago
They love their dictator until it backfires, that's a quite old story.
- pjc50 8mo ago
  Google employees were generally pretty anti-Trump, it's the senior leadership and the recommendation algorithms that are pro-Trump.
  - u1hcw9nx 8mo ago
    Senior leaders in Google are not pro-Trump. Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Ellison (Oracle) consistently supported Trump before his win was certain and are tight with Trump. They were megadonors behind his campaign. Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin) and Zuckerberg (Meta) pivoted towards Trump in 2024 after it looked like he would wind second time. They are opportunistic bastards who try to weasel into the good side of Trump with varying results. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia etc. just bend the knee. They are reluctant but pragmatic and try to protect the company when their competition Amazon, Meta and Oracle are on the inside. Notice that in this final group, CEOs lack autonomy. At Alphabet, Page and Brin retain controlling authority (and they just try to avoid getting involved with Trump). Nvidia lacks a dual-class structure, meaning Jensen Huang (4% votes) can be outvoted on critical matters. Both Apple and Microsoft are "faceless" corporation where the CEOs serve as hired hands.
    - harimau777 8mo ago
      That strikes me as being a distinction without a difference. If anything, I have less respect for people who support fascism for money than I do for people who actually believe in it.
      - u1hcw9nx 8mo ago
        Trump may be fascist but the is still democratically elected leader with Senate backing him. It's not the Corporate leaders to decide to against democratically elected leaders even if they are bad. They have can only slow walk the decline. You would not want that either.
        tyre 8mo ago
        This is patently silly. The US does not have a democratically elected dictatorship. People and companies are free to do whatever the fuck they want that’s not illegal. They can resist any government priorities for any reason, including finding them destructive or anti-democratic or corrupt. The government is able to change the laws within the current system to back its will—regardless of whether it’s in the interest of the people who voted for them, let alone the entire population. (No the em dash isn’t AI.)
        Teever 8mo ago
        It's a blatantly inflammatory comment from a 42 day old account with a gibberish username. It's a troll. Just flag it and move on.
        ImPostingOnHN 8mo ago
        > It's not the Corporate leaders to decide to against democratically elected leaders even if they are bad. Refusing to join forces and contribute your efforts towards actively support fascism is not "deciding against democratically elected leaders". This sort of rhetorical sophism is unhelpful and, indeed, damaging. It is ABSOLUTELY everyone's place, ("corporate leaders" included) to have principles and stick to them. Personally, I agree with the principles of not using fallible AI for mass domestic surveillance analysis purposes, or for fully autonomous weapon purposes.
  - NoNameHaveI 8mo ago
    I'd like to believe that Silicon Valley mgmt is Pro-Trump in the same way that Oskar Schindler was "pro Nazi". You may not personally like who is in office, but you pretend to in order to survive.
    - AdamN 8mo ago
      There are a few people like that (we know who they are) but either tech has changed or I never noticed but a significant portion of the senior leadership in the tech world is MAGA (not in the dumb way - but in a far more problematic "techno-libertarian" way)
      - ethbr1 8mo ago
        > in a far more problematic "techno-libertarian" way We should probably use a different word for Elon-style goals. "Freedom for me but not for thee" is a far stretch from libertarianism.
        AdamN 8mo ago
        All the real world libertarianism I've seen trends towards the Elon Musk kind. I almost intentionally use the word since I don't see any other outcome so it's important to use the word liberally :-)
    - tyre 8mo ago
      This isn’t the case, sadly. Some people, like Ben Horowitz sadly, have gone completely off the deep end. Some are culture warriors who feel they have been wronged, some are opportunists. But the thing with opportunism is that this is who they are and what they believe in. Having a president who is corrupt is exactly what they want because they know exactly how to work with him: quid pro quo. There is no distance between them being pro-Trump and opportunistic. He’s the perfect embodiment of those values.
  - mrguyorama 8mo ago
    Nobody cares what the employees of a company think because capitalism doesn't care. It's meaningless to talk about what the employees think or care about. They are selling their labor and value to the corporation that is legally entitled to outspend all of them to get whatever it wants.
- timtas 8mo ago
  Imagine thinking this would go any different under any Harris or whoever. The war party gets its way.
  - krapp 8mo ago
    Things absolutely, undeniably would have gone different under a Harris administration. Not perfect, obviously, but not this. There was a clear better choice and Trump wasn't it. And everyone who refused to vote or voted Trump because they saw no difference between the two has to wear that like an albratross around their necks for the rest of their lives. And I pray that they live long enough to feel the consequence of their stupidity close around their necks like a noose.
throwfaraway4 8mo ago
Unless it’s signed by the CEO it doesn’t matter
- raincole 8mo ago
  CEOs: looks like a perfect chance to optimize some employees off!
- lkbm 8mo ago
  It made a difference when the OpenAI board fired Altman. That was a incredibly high employee count, but losing even 10% of your employees would seriously hamper a company if it's the right employees. (This is also why the DoD move is so dumb. I think we'd see massive talent flight from Anthropic if they end up complying, even if that compliance is against Dario's will.)
stingraycharles 8mo ago
Call me cynical, but given that Google is a publicly traded company and OpenAI having a trillion in spending commitments, I’m skeptical whether the leadership of those companies feel the same as their employees.
- rustyhancock 8mo ago
  Yes. I did not forsee this at all, but if OpenAI face and existential threat with no path in 2026-2030 to maintain user base. Why can't they go to the contract generator of last resort, aka the Pentagon. It's what Elon has done with SpaceX and Grok.
  - stingraycharles 8mo ago
    And Google is already a DoD contractor. I remember back in the day there was some fuzz amongst employees that did not approve, but in the end that was just a very vocal minority and most people don’t care. I suspect the same will happen here.
    - LtWorf 8mo ago
      Yeah and the dissenting employees will be "encouraged" to leave.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
discopicante 8mo ago
For the signatories attributing their names and titles, that should be respected to put your reputation on the line. It means something. As for the others who are signing 'anonymous', this is meaningless. Either sign or don't. I would suggest removing that as an option.
- JackYoustra 8mo ago
  Then you would get zero H1B and, frankly, green card signatures. There is real risk and real dependents at stake, I understand people who can't in good conscience put that at risk.
  - jabedude 8mo ago
    Why should anyone at the Department of War or the general public care what non-citizen employees of these companies think?
    - garyfirestorm 8mo ago
      because citizenship is not a prerequisite for defending human rights and differentiating right from wrong. this isn't general election and they are not voting, non citizens still enjoy the rights under the constitution like 1A.
    - JackYoustra 8mo ago
      Because noncitizens can be motivated or not and / or resign and, frankly, there isn't that deep of a well of top tier AI talent. The threat of mass resignations led to OAI re-hiring sam altman, after all. Also why would the department of war care about what citizens think specifically?
    - Windchaser 8mo ago
      This administration has consistently signaled that they will do all they legally can to punish those dissenters. Look at the White House labeling recent victims of ICE shootings as "terrorists", despite there being no sign of terroristic activity from these US citizens. Or, look at how the WH is cutting Medicaid benefits to Minnesota. Going after the visa-holding employees of these companies is within reach of the WH, and it's consistent with their MO.
tcgv 8mo ago
Employee solidarity matters, but absent a legal constraint, I don’t think it’s a durable control. If this remains primarily a political/corporate bargaining question, the equilibrium is unstable: some actors will resist, some will comply, and capital will flow toward whoever captures the demand. In that world, the likely endgame is not "the industry says no," but organizational restructuring (or new entrants) built to serve the market anyway. If we as a society want a real boundary here, it probably has to be set at the policy/law level, not left to voluntary corporate red lines.
i_love_retros 8mo ago
Oh what heroes! They wrote a letter! They will keep working at these scummy companies though taking their fat pay checks won't they
- surajrmal 8mo ago
  It's easier to affect change from within. Do you judge people for choosing to continue living in America?
  - mrguyorama 8mo ago
    No it isn't. A company is authoritarian by design. You cannot force change from the bottom because that is inherently designed against by the very concept of a corporation. The control rests with the board and the executives. They have the control and the power and can make decisions.
toephu2 8mo ago
"Altman Says OpenAI Is Working on Pentagon Deal Amid Anthropic Standoff" https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-sam-altman-calls-for-de-escalation-in-anthropic-showdown-with-hegseth-03ecbac8?mod=hp_lead_pos1 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-sam-altman-calls-for-de-...
timtas 8mo ago
Search: [ Altman 0/0 ]

eric-burel 8mo ago

They love their dictator until it backfires, that's a quite old story.

pjc50 8mo ago
Google employees were generally pretty anti-Trump, it's the senior leadership and the recommendation algorithms that are pro-Trump.
- u1hcw9nx 8mo ago
  Senior leaders in Google are not pro-Trump. Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Ellison (Oracle) consistently supported Trump before his win was certain and are tight with Trump. They were megadonors behind his campaign. Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin) and Zuckerberg (Meta) pivoted towards Trump in 2024 after it looked like he would wind second time. They are opportunistic bastards who try to weasel into the good side of Trump with varying results. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia etc. just bend the knee. They are reluctant but pragmatic and try to protect the company when their competition Amazon, Meta and Oracle are on the inside. Notice that in this final group, CEOs lack autonomy. At Alphabet, Page and Brin retain controlling authority (and they just try to avoid getting involved with Trump). Nvidia lacks a dual-class structure, meaning Jensen Huang (4% votes) can be outvoted on critical matters. Both Apple and Microsoft are "faceless" corporation where the CEOs serve as hired hands.
  - harimau777 8mo ago
    That strikes me as being a distinction without a difference. If anything, I have less respect for people who support fascism for money than I do for people who actually believe in it.
    - u1hcw9nx 8mo ago
      Trump may be fascist but the is still democratically elected leader with Senate backing him. It's not the Corporate leaders to decide to against democratically elected leaders even if they are bad. They have can only slow walk the decline. You would not want that either.
      - tyre 8mo ago
        This is patently silly. The US does not have a democratically elected dictatorship. People and companies are free to do whatever the fuck they want that’s not illegal. They can resist any government priorities for any reason, including finding them destructive or anti-democratic or corrupt. The government is able to change the laws within the current system to back its will—regardless of whether it’s in the interest of the people who voted for them, let alone the entire population. (No the em dash isn’t AI.)
        Teever 8mo ago
        It's a blatantly inflammatory comment from a 42 day old account with a gibberish username. It's a troll. Just flag it and move on.
      - ImPostingOnHN 8mo ago
        > It's not the Corporate leaders to decide to against democratically elected leaders even if they are bad. Refusing to join forces and contribute your efforts towards actively support fascism is not "deciding against democratically elected leaders". This sort of rhetorical sophism is unhelpful and, indeed, damaging. It is ABSOLUTELY everyone's place, ("corporate leaders" included) to have principles and stick to them. Personally, I agree with the principles of not using fallible AI for mass domestic surveillance analysis purposes, or for fully autonomous weapon purposes.
- NoNameHaveI 8mo ago
  I'd like to believe that Silicon Valley mgmt is Pro-Trump in the same way that Oskar Schindler was "pro Nazi". You may not personally like who is in office, but you pretend to in order to survive.
  - AdamN 8mo ago
    There are a few people like that (we know who they are) but either tech has changed or I never noticed but a significant portion of the senior leadership in the tech world is MAGA (not in the dumb way - but in a far more problematic "techno-libertarian" way)
    - ethbr1 8mo ago
      > in a far more problematic "techno-libertarian" way We should probably use a different word for Elon-style goals. "Freedom for me but not for thee" is a far stretch from libertarianism.
      - AdamN 8mo ago
        All the real world libertarianism I've seen trends towards the Elon Musk kind. I almost intentionally use the word since I don't see any other outcome so it's important to use the word liberally :-)
  - tyre 8mo ago
    This isn’t the case, sadly. Some people, like Ben Horowitz sadly, have gone completely off the deep end. Some are culture warriors who feel they have been wronged, some are opportunists. But the thing with opportunism is that this is who they are and what they believe in. Having a president who is corrupt is exactly what they want because they know exactly how to work with him: quid pro quo. There is no distance between them being pro-Trump and opportunistic. He’s the perfect embodiment of those values.
- mrguyorama 8mo ago
  Nobody cares what the employees of a company think because capitalism doesn't care. It's meaningless to talk about what the employees think or care about. They are selling their labor and value to the corporation that is legally entitled to outspend all of them to get whatever it wants.
timtas 8mo ago
Imagine thinking this would go any different under any Harris or whoever. The war party gets its way.
- krapp 8mo ago
  Things absolutely, undeniably would have gone different under a Harris administration. Not perfect, obviously, but not this. There was a clear better choice and Trump wasn't it. And everyone who refused to vote or voted Trump because they saw no difference between the two has to wear that like an albratross around their necks for the rest of their lives. And I pray that they live long enough to feel the consequence of their stupidity close around their necks like a noose.

throwfaraway4 8mo ago

Unless it’s signed by the CEO it doesn’t matter

raincole 8mo ago
CEOs: looks like a perfect chance to optimize some employees off!
lkbm 8mo ago
It made a difference when the OpenAI board fired Altman. That was a incredibly high employee count, but losing even 10% of your employees would seriously hamper a company if it's the right employees. (This is also why the DoD move is so dumb. I think we'd see massive talent flight from Anthropic if they end up complying, even if that compliance is against Dario's will.)

stingraycharles 8mo ago

Call me cynical, but given that Google is a publicly traded company and OpenAI having a trillion in spending commitments, I’m skeptical whether the leadership of those companies feel the same as their employees.

rustyhancock 8mo ago
Yes. I did not forsee this at all, but if OpenAI face and existential threat with no path in 2026-2030 to maintain user base. Why can't they go to the contract generator of last resort, aka the Pentagon. It's what Elon has done with SpaceX and Grok.
- stingraycharles 8mo ago
  And Google is already a DoD contractor. I remember back in the day there was some fuzz amongst employees that did not approve, but in the end that was just a very vocal minority and most people don’t care. I suspect the same will happen here.
  - LtWorf 8mo ago
    Yeah and the dissenting employees will be "encouraged" to leave.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

discopicante 8mo ago

For the signatories attributing their names and titles, that should be respected to put your reputation on the line. It means something. As for the others who are signing 'anonymous', this is meaningless. Either sign or don't. I would suggest removing that as an option.

JackYoustra 8mo ago
Then you would get zero H1B and, frankly, green card signatures. There is real risk and real dependents at stake, I understand people who can't in good conscience put that at risk.
- jabedude 8mo ago
  Why should anyone at the Department of War or the general public care what non-citizen employees of these companies think?
  - garyfirestorm 8mo ago
    because citizenship is not a prerequisite for defending human rights and differentiating right from wrong. this isn't general election and they are not voting, non citizens still enjoy the rights under the constitution like 1A.
  - JackYoustra 8mo ago
    Because noncitizens can be motivated or not and / or resign and, frankly, there isn't that deep of a well of top tier AI talent. The threat of mass resignations led to OAI re-hiring sam altman, after all. Also why would the department of war care about what citizens think specifically?
  - Windchaser 8mo ago
    This administration has consistently signaled that they will do all they legally can to punish those dissenters. Look at the White House labeling recent victims of ICE shootings as "terrorists", despite there being no sign of terroristic activity from these US citizens. Or, look at how the WH is cutting Medicaid benefits to Minnesota. Going after the visa-holding employees of these companies is within reach of the WH, and it's consistent with their MO.

tcgv 8mo ago

Employee solidarity matters, but absent a legal constraint, I don’t think it’s a durable control. If this remains primarily a political/corporate bargaining question, the equilibrium is unstable: some actors will resist, some will comply, and capital will flow toward whoever captures the demand. In that world, the likely endgame is not "the industry says no," but organizational restructuring (or new entrants) built to serve the market anyway. If we as a society want a real boundary here, it probably has to be set at the policy/law level, not left to voluntary corporate red lines.

i_love_retros 8mo ago

Oh what heroes! They wrote a letter! They will keep working at these scummy companies though taking their fat pay checks won't they

surajrmal 8mo ago
It's easier to affect change from within. Do you judge people for choosing to continue living in America?
- mrguyorama 8mo ago
  No it isn't. A company is authoritarian by design. You cannot force change from the bottom because that is inherently designed against by the very concept of a corporation. The control rests with the board and the executives. They have the control and the power and can make decisions.

toephu2 8mo ago

"Altman Says OpenAI Is Working on Pentagon Deal Amid Anthropic Standoff" https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-sam-altman-calls-for-de-escalation-in-anthropic-showdown-with-hegseth-03ecbac8?mod=hp_lead_pos1 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-sam-altman-calls-for-de-...

timtas 8mo ago

Search: [ Altman 0/0 ]