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The Pentagon is making a mistake by threatening Anthropic
- bediger4000 9mo agoI agree. This is a spectacular mistake. Anthropic has the best "AI" on the planet. Anthropic can spin up a giant "Claude" and plan rings around the Pentagon. DoD better get used to losing that fight.
- smt88 9mo agoClaude is the best, but Gemini with DoD money could get as good as Claude very easily
- onion2k 9mo agoI think it'd be surprising if money is the limiting factor in Gemini's success considering Google has very deep pockets, so that's probably not true. Also, Gemini with DoD money and DoD direction is likely to result in an AI that works very well for the DoD but significantly less well for other things, especially if your use case benefits from some guardrails (and most use cases do, because you rarely want AI to just do whatever it fancies.)
- thefounder 9mo agoGemini is just the worst of the 3 horses. The gov will eventually make them all to bend the knee. PRISM already showed they(eventually) all comply. I personally see this more like PR for Anthropic before the IPO
- iberator 9mo agoSo? You can still win the race if you have the third fastest car on the planet.
- dyauspitr 9mo agoThe problem is they’re going to hit them with a wrench and no one will do anything because there’s no rule of law at that level left in the country. Just sycophancy and backroom deals.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- riffic 9mo agothe Pentagon is the name of a building (pretty much a very large bikeshed). I see the actual agency is named by the author as the Defense Department and one of the officials in question is a Defense Secretary. Interestingly, the bikeshed itself has its own spokespeople.
- jameskilton 9mo ago"The Pentagon" has been the nomenclature for DoD / DoW for decades. Everyone knows what it means.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- LambdaComplex 9mo agoYeah, this is an incredibly common metonym.
- ulbu 9mo agothere is also a figure of speech used soo often, called metonymy.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- loloquwowndueo 9mo agoIt’s called a metonym. Look it up.
- harimau777 9mo agoThe Pentagon is a synecdoche for military leadership in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche
- georgemcbay 9mo agoThe White House is also the name of a building. News sources have been using both building names (and several more I can think of off the top of my head) as short hand for the people who work inside of them for my entire life.
- nubg 9mo agoThis whole standoff could set a very important precedent of the Trump administration not getting what they want, and not in a "maneuvered out of the news spotlight" kind of way (e.g. Greenland), but in a public "FUCK OFF right in your face" kind of way. The worst that can happen to Anthropic is one of the two things mentioned; loosing some contracts or some fake forced management from the Pentagon. maybe Dario having to leave, certainly a loss for him and people who believe in him but probably nothing world-changing. The worst that can happen to the Trump administration is the beginning of its end, when people realize you can simply stand up to their bullying and with all the standoffs they have going on in parallel, maybe they will die a death by a thousand cuts?
- cindyllm 9mo ago[dead]
- tokai 9mo ago>not in a "maneuvered out of the news spotlight" kind of way (e.g. Greenland) I what world has the Greenland stuff been anything but a fuckoff?
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> I what world has the Greenland stuff been anything but a fuckoff? The world in which Europe didn't respond, Americans didn't flip out and Congress didn't push back.
- delichon 9mo agoAnthropic has an excellent balance sheet. It basically has fuck you money that would let it walk away from the federal trough without existential risk. And hopefully extra dollars from users like me could compensate and then some in the fullness of time.
- afavour 9mo agoIt has an excellent balance sheet that it’s actively chewing through, though.
- denverllc 9mo agoDo they? Are they different than OpenAi which I know has lots of debt and is losing money quarter over quarter with declining user share.
- oceanplexian 9mo agoIf they are deemed a supply chain risk under the DPA anyone doing business with them and has government contracts has to drop them, including Google and Microsoft. The $200M is small potatoes compared to this.
- stackskipton 9mo agoBeing declared Supply Chain Risk means if you do ANY business with US government, you cannot use something. So many companies have US Government contracts. Maybe they are not majority of their business like Lockheed Martin or RTX but look at F10, on that list, MAYBE Walmart is only one without US Gov Contract, everyone else likely does.
- blibble 9mo agodon't look at the profit and loss though
- TimorousBestie 9mo agoArticle doesn’t demonstrate a good understanding of DoW’s relationship with contractors. Anthropic wanted those sweet, sweet, taxpayer dollars—well, this is what happens when you make a Faustian bargain. > One option is to invoke the Defense Production Act. . . > Another threat would be to declare Anthropic to be a supply chain risk. . . The first is a wrist-slap that still gets the government what they want; the second is an existential threat to Anthropic. Their main partners are all “dogs of the military”. Microsoft, Intuit, NVIDIA: all government contractors. I can’t find one company that they have a working relationship with that doesn’t hold at least one govt contract. The idea that Claude could alignment fake its way out of a change in contractual terms is silly. The DoW has all sorts of legal and administrative tools it can choose to leverage against contractors that fail to perform. Usually it doesn’t, because of a “norm” that says the private defense sector runs more smoothly when the government doesn’t try to micromanage it. Remind me again how good this administration is at upholding norms?
- bpodgursky 9mo agoThe DoD can invoke the DPA on any company it wants. Not really sure how this becomes Anthropic's fault.
- TimorousBestie 9mo agoThey knew what they were signing on to when they sought DoW funding. I guarantee Dario was briefed on the risks associated with high-profile govt contracting.
- intrasight 9mo agoEven if not briefed, such a smart person surely knows that he owe's his stash of gold to the willingness of others to spill their blood to protect it. Those willing to spill their blood have historically always had a claim on your gold.
- cogman10 9mo ago> Remind me again how good this administration is at upholding norms? When it comes to killing and spying on people with flimsy justifications that's a pretty bipartisan norm. Hell, Anthropic isn't even saying they won't help the DoW do just that, they just want to make sure there's a human in the loop. The "USA Freedom Act" [1], which made most of the Patriot act permanent, had bipartisan support. I'm all for reversing the continual ramp up of the police state and the industrial military complex. We need to recognize, however, that it's being funded and pushed by both parties. Generally playing on fears of the scary other. (Muslim terrorists in 00s, Mexicans today). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act
- dirk94018 9mo ago[flagged]
- derektank 9mo agoThis isn’t an external directive; Anthropic was founded with the mission of creating safe, reliable AI systems. You wouldn’t see the same people working at the company if the company didn’t stand by its acceptable use policy and other internal standards
- dirk94018 9mo agoIsn't a safe and reliable intelligence an oxymoron?
- flumpcakes 9mo agoAre you saying intelligence is inherently unsafe? That seems like a pretty wild conclusion and I can't see any logical way to jump to your opinions.
- dirk94018 9mo agoI'm saying the capability to reason about novel situations is in tension with guaranteeing it never produces harmful outputs. We are talking about contradictory design constraints.
- derektank 9mo agoNobody knows. That’s what they founded Anthropic to find out
- LogicFailsMe 9mo agoI don't have a lot of hope here. When most of the creme de la creme of the billionaire class capitulated to Trump at the beginning of his term, that set the tone for everything that followed IMO. It's astounding to me that so many are willing to see him trample on the Constitution and separation of powers when they'd scream like stuck pigs if any other party attempted it. And that's the way a lot of influential Americans like it I guess. Like I said, not a lot of hope. YMMV.
- mingus88 9mo agoBenito Mussolini: 'Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.' That is the reason why they would cry if the other party broke the rules to this degree. The other party is more aligned with regulations; taking power from corporations instead of giving it to them.
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> Benito Mussolini: 'Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.' He literally named it [1]! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fascist_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fascist_Party
- burkaman 9mo agoSeems like it is probably a fake quote: https://politicalresearch.org/2005/01/12/mussolini-corporate-state https://politicalresearch.org/2005/01/12/mussolini-corporate...
- newsoftheday 9mo ago> The other party is more aligned with regulations; taking power from corporations instead of giving it to them. Enough regulation is good, not enough and too much are both bad. Neither party has the best plan when it comes to regulation, Republicans want too little (increasing corporate power), Democrats want too much (increasing government power).
- JumpCrisscross 9mo agoMy read of this interaction is Dario is calling out Hegseths' bluff. A bluff the latter didn't even know he was blundering into because Hegseth is an idiot. SecDef invoking the DPA against Anthropic likely trashes the AI fundraising market, at least for a spell. That's why OpenAI is wading into the fight [1]. Given the Dow is sitting on a rising souffle of AI expectations, that knocks it out as well. And if there is one red line Trump has consistently hewed to and messaged on, it's in not pissing off the Dow. [1] https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/altman-openai-anthropic-pentagon https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/altman-openai-anthropic-pen...
- philipwhiuk 9mo agoImagine if it's just Grok that plays ball because Musk doesn't want to lose SpaceX's DoD contracts now it's the same outfit.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- zyx321 9mo agoI'll imagine Grok plays ball because this is an obviously blatantly fascist policy, and Elon did like 2 or 3 SIEG HEILs at the inauguration.
- basch 9mo agoA strong argument for the other players to play ball. "Let us use your service or we will attach our kill trigger to a wildcard whim driven vendor."
- mekdoonggi 9mo agoI disagree. If the argument is, "Someone else will", then you are just complicit. If good people don't comply, it will fall to someone who has lower ethical standard, but that person will likely be less competent.
- 9mo ago
- owenthejumper 9mo agoEverything about this situation is absolutely bonkers. Marking a US company as a supply chain risk hasn't been done before AFAIK, and is a guaranteed end of the company. It's the US government basically unilaterally deciding to end a leading AI researcher company. Years of lawsuits will follow, comparisons to "communism", accusations of Trump/Heghseth being Chinese/Russia agents (because well, how else do you hand over the AI win to China than by killing one of your top 2?)
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> is a guaranteed end of the company Why do you say this?
- parliament32 9mo agoBecause this means you can't use it in regulated industries, including vendors of companies in regulated industries. It means any company who buys Anthropic products can never sell services to a company who is in a regulated industry (or has customers in a regulated industry, or has customers who have customers who are in a regulated industry, etc etc).
- owenthejumper 9mo agoand I was downvoted for this :-DD
- ben_w 9mo agoHi, I'm European, not only I but also my peers are likely to actively prefer a corporation that Trump hates, and still would even if it was a little behind the curve (especially in AI, where new models from someone get announced every other week, so "a little behind the curve" doesn't mean much).
- A_D_E_P_T 9mo ago> is a guaranteed end of the company. It's trivially untrue. It could be the end of one type of business model, and it could slow their growth, but it could also be a blessing in disguise -- there are a lot of brilliant engineers who would prefer to work with an Anthropic that took a stand on ethics, and a lot of people who would prefer to support such a company. One door closes, another opens. They could become an open, public-facing, benevolent-AI company.
- tokyobreakfast 9mo agoImagine one of the defense primes telling the DoW, "We won't build you these planes, they're just too darned lethal!"
- mikkupikku 9mo agoPlanes are fairly predictable, they can more or less be relied on to do that leadership asks them and not more. This stuff is more akin to nerve gas, there's no telling where it will go once deployed.
- avs733 9mo agoThey are a private company they can largely sell or not sell they want. They aren’t saying they won’t build them because they are to effective they are saying they won’t build them because they aren’t safe.
- philipwhiuk 9mo agoQuoting statute: > The President is hereby authorized (1) to require that performance under contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) which he deems necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense shall take priority over performance under any other contract or order, and, for the purpose of assuring such priority, to require acceptance and performance of such contracts or orders in preference to other contracts or orders by any person he finds to be capable of their performance, and (2) to allocate materials and facilities in such manner, upon such conditions, and to such extent as he shall deem necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense.
- 306bobby 9mo agoSure, but the contract in place forbids these things. So the contract is literally a non-performer and cannot perform such orders in the way it is written. So, I personally struggle to see outside of taking over the supply chain how Anthropics contract forces them to do this
- avs733 9mo ago
- Eggpants 9mo agoWhat’s interesting is Anthropic being singled out here. That either means: 1- OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc have no problem with their products being used to kill people so no need to bully them. 2- These other products are so terrible at the task that the clown shoe wearing SecDef is forced to try to bully Anthropic.
- lkbm 9mo agoAnthropic already went through the process of getting approved to work in secure network. (I think xAI may have as well, but the others just don't have that access.)
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- mediaman 9mo agoIt's not either of those. Anthropic put a lot of effort into getting FedRAMP approved so the DOD could use them; they are now being punished for that, and the government at present has no other good options. Other options could of course be developed, but other vendors may question how unreliable and untrustworthy the current DOD leadership is as as customer.
- stronglikedan 9mo ago> DOD *DOW
- ok_dad 9mo agoNo it’s still the DoD legally
- dpkirchner 9mo agoThere is no such thing. That's a fantasy term used by deluded people to signal a particular virtue.
- jstummbillig 9mo agoOn the one hand it's fantastic that people are resisting and, if nothing else, raising awareness and buying time. On the other hand, is autonomous war not obviously the endgame, given how quickly capabilities are increasing and that it simply does not require much intelligence (relatively speaking) to build something that points a gun at something and pulls a trigger? It just needs one player to do it, so everyone has to be able to do it. I'd love to hear about different scenarios scenario.
- Enginerrrd 9mo ago> it simply does not require much intelligence (relatively speaking) to build something that points a gun at something and pulls a trigger? I could not disagree more. A big part of that is also knowing when NOT to pull the trigger. And it’s much harder than you’d think. If you think full self driving is a difficult task for computers, battlefield operations are an order of magnitude more complex, at least.
- collingreen 9mo agoThe big asterisk in what you're saying is, like self driving cars, it's hardest when you want to be the most precise and limit the downsides. In this paradigm, false positives and false negatives have a very big cost. If you simply wanted to cause havoc and destruction with no regard for collateral damage then the problem space is much more simple since you only need enough true positives to be effective at your mission. The ability to code with ai has shown that it requires an even higher level of responsibility and discipline than before in order to get good results without out of control downside. I think the ability to kill with ai would be the same way but even more severe.
- ACCount37 9mo agoWe have fully autonomous weapons, and had them for over a century. We call them "landmines". I expect autonomous weapons of the near future to look somewhat similar to that. They get deployed to an area, attack anything that looks remotely like a target there for a given time, then stand down and return to base. That's it. The job of the autonomous weapon platform isn't telling friend from foe - it's disposing of every target within a geofence when ordered to do so.
- khalic 9mo agoI can't believe how many people take the anthropic statement at face value. You need to concentrate on what they are implicitly acknowledging. They will spy on non us citizens. How philanthropic edit: how about the downvoters give a counterargument instead of trying to bury this comment?
- nullsanity 9mo ago[dead]
- gip 9mo agoThe challenge for Americans is: can the political work of defining and protecting our values be outsourced to a company like Anthropic? Anthropic (and others), whether due to financial/regulatory/competitive, will at some point permit their products to be used for any lawful purpose. Even if they attempt to restrict certain uses today. That arrangement is unlikely to hold. Americans should vote for the right candidates and elect leaders who will carry and defend their views. I don't think there is any other way.
- Loughla 9mo agoI'm not trying to have a cynical hot take, but the political class seems not to offer up any candidates that carry or defend my views and the path to these positions requires funding and resources I will never have access to. The situation in the United States, right now, seems genuinely hopeless. And I'm certain I'm not the only person who feels this way. What is there to do besides resign myself to what's coming and try my best to ignore the bullshit?
- MWParkerson 9mo agoPathetic but not unexpected that people are willing to tolerate such a use of AI. However, this is the most principled statement on the military use of AI that a frontier model leadership suite has released. It's also full of "china bad" sentiment that's worth picking over, but in a political and economic paradigm that expects & rewards blatant corruption, this statement still stands out.
- dang 9mo agoRelated ongoing thread: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121 - Feb 2026 (1405 comments)
- y-c-o-m-b 9mo agoMy belief is they are terrified of China and this seems evident when you take into account the moves they're making with Venezuela, Iran, and the increased adoption of authoritarian tactics. We're trying to play catch-up with China's rapid rise as a super-power and the AI infrastructure is one of the few major developments we still have control over, for now. I sympathize with Dario, he's stuck in a very bad position on this. We do not want China to operate on this level while we sit back with one hand tied behind our backs. On the other hand, this administration is making extremely poor decisions and arguably causing extensive harm domestically and internationally, so it's a lose-lose situation for Dario really.
- kylehotchkiss 9mo agoNationalize xai then? the owner is rich enough and can find a new pet project
- wat10000 9mo agoIf they were terrified of China, they wouldn't be working so hard to alienate so many allies who would naturally be on our side. They're just bullies trying to win approval by looking tough.
- stackskipton 9mo agoDoD Generals are probably pushing this with Hegseth because it's something they can control and Hegseth is not pushing back. DoD Generals also probably don't agree with pissing off all our allies but they don't have control of elected leadership and elected leadership is making those decisions.
- kgwxd 9mo agoMACBCMAC doesn't roll off the tongue as well as MAGA I guess. If we're going to make America just like China, to get ahead of China, so they can't make us China, I fail to see where American citizens would even notice the difference.
- shimman 9mo agoIf they are terrified of China why aren't they doing more diplomacy or at minimum, not allow NVIDIA to sell their chips to them? Sorry but the China scare tactics is just more cold war nonsense. The idea China as a serious threat to anyone in the world where you have the USA invading countries (invading Iraq based on lies), kidnapping Presidents (Venezula), assassinating various leaders (drone strikes), abusing democratic ideals (Patriot act, PRISM, parallel construction, using banned chemical weapons against their own civilians; the USA has been a huge threat against the world and itself for the last 25 years.
- snowwrestler 9mo agoUse of the DPA can be litigated, and surely would be. Designation as a supply chain risk surely would be as well. These court cases would produce bad outcomes either way. If the court finds for Anthropic, future DoD leadership will find itself constrained or at least chilled. Or if the court finds for the government, an expansive permissive view of the DPA might encourage future administrations to compel tech companies to make AIs break the law in other ways, for example by suppressing certain political points of view in output. National defense is strongest if the military is extremely powerful but carefully judicious in the application of that power. That gives us the highest “top end” capability of performance. If military leadership insists on acting recklessly, then eventually guardrails are installed, with the result of a diminished ability to respond effectively to low-probability, high risk moments. One of many nuances and paradoxes the current political leadership does not seem to understand.
- magicalist 9mo ago> If the court finds for Anthropic, future DoD leadership will find itself constrained or at least chilled Seems like a good outcome? The government should not be able to arbitrarily decide to make private citizens do things they aren't willing to do, whether the government thinks the action is legal or not, and its especially egregious when the government knew about those limits ahead of time, spelled out in a fucking contract.
- halJordan 9mo agoThe problem in this case is in fact the best part of our military. The civilian control. This isn't a general or admiral going insane. This is a politically motivated and appropriately assigned civilian. And that's the good part. The bad part is the failure of the citizenry to elect moral and ethical politicians.
- wpwd 9mo agoThe bad part is the failure of the political parties to proffer moral and ethical politicians for the people to elect.
- FrustratedMonky 9mo agoYeah it is. The Military has put itself in the position of arguing for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. In what way can that be spun as a positive. They are arguing to do things that shouldn't be allowed anyway.
- FrustratedMonky 9mo agoNDAA (The "Huawei Rule") is for cases when a foreign entity has infiltrated or taken over the company in question. But DOD wants to use Anthropic so is really confirming that there is no foreign entity issues. They want to use it. So to use NDAA (The "Huawei Rule"), is nakedly false and being used as a punishment. Which if allowed to happen, could be used against any US Corporation to enforce compliance with the regime..
- mrexcess 9mo agoJust want to note the emergence of a two-tiered imbalance. Frontier AI providers are stacking the guardrails so high that everyday citizens can't even ask an LLM what boobs are, but simultaneously providing government with AI lacking guardrails around "any lawful purpose". That's fundamentally antidemocratic and it normalizes the departure from the Western Enlightenment standard of, "the same law governs everyone".
- josefritzishere 9mo agoIt really is beyond the pale to threaten a private company in this way outside of war time. It's an unthinkable overreach.
- CrossVR 9mo ago> Dario Amodei published an essay warning about potential dangers from powerful AI — including domestic mass surveillance (which he brands “entirely illegitimate”) Why is only domestic surveillance by an AI dangerous? I guess Europeans are not worth protecting from the dangers of AI?
- 627467 9mo agoShouldn't this be decided by the domestic populations in europe or elsewhere?
- wg0 9mo agoI have a question. Is this Trump effect or Pentagon would have threatened otherwise too? Genuine question.