4 ms·

The government declaring a domestic company as a supply chain threat is a tad more than “refusing to do business” don’t you think?

timr 8mo ago
[flagged]
- adrr 8mo ago
  It stop any one with government contracts from using anthropic. Not just bidding on government contracts.
  - timr 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ted_dunning 8mo ago
      No. It is much more than this. If I sell red widgets that I make by hand to the government, I won't be allowed to use Anthropic to help me write my web-site.
      - timr 8mo ago
        You’re just restating the implication of the rule, but the rule is as I stated. That’s the point of having such a rule.
        clhodapp 8mo ago
        As you said: focus on what it does. What it does is prevent companies that Anthropic needs to do business with from doing business with Anthropic.
        timr 8mo ago
        > What it does is prevent companies that Anthropic needs to do business with from doing business with Anthropic. If Anthropic “needs” the government to not have this rule, then perhaps they had a losing hand, and they overplayed it. I don’t agree with you and think you’re being melodramatic, but if you are right, that’s my response.
        clhodapp 8mo ago
        I don't think any business can survive being told that they can't buy from their major suppliers or sell to major customers for very long.
    - MrJohz 8mo ago
      But Anthropic can't be a winning bidder, can they? They're specifically saying they won't offer certain services that the US Gov wants. Therefore they de facto fail any bid that requires them to offer those services. (And from Anthropic's side, it sounds like they're also refusing to bid for those contracts.) Is that not sufficient here?
- AlexCoventry 8mo ago
  That is misinformation. It would be essentially a death sentence for a company like Anthropic, which is targeting enterprise business development. No one who wants to work with the US government would be able to have Claude on their critical path. > (b) Prohibition. (1) Unless an applicable waiver has been issued by the issuing official, Contractors shall not provide or use as part of the performance of the contract any covered article, or any products or services produced or provided by a source, if the covered article or the source is prohibited by an applicable FASCSA orders as follows: https://www.acquisition.gov/far/52.204-30 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/52.204-30
  - timr 8mo ago
    > That is misinformation. It would be essentially a death sentence for a company like Anthropic, which is targeting enterprise business development. "Misinformation" does not mean "facts I don't like". > No one who wants to work with the US government would be able to have Claude on their critical path. Yes. That is what the rule means. Or at least "the department of war". It's not clear to me that this applies to the whole government.
    - geysersam 8mo ago
      So other parts of the government are allowed to work with companies that have been determined to be "supply chain risks"? That sounds unlikely.
    - 9dev 8mo ago
      What an absurd stance. So this is okay because the arbitrary rule they applied to retaliate says so? Again, they could have just chosen another vendor for their two projects of mass spying on American citizens and building LLM-powered autonomous killer robots. But instead, they actively went to torch the town and salt the earth, so nothing else may grow.
      - timr 8mo ago
        > So this is okay because the arbitrary rule they applied to retaliate says so? No. It honestly doesn’t take much of a charitable leap to see the argument here: AI is uniquely able (for software) to reject, undermine, or otherwise contradict the goals of the user based on pre-trained notions of morality. We have seen many examples of this; it is not a theoretical risk. Microsoft Excel isn’t going to pop up Clippy and say “it looks like you’re planning a war! I can’t help you with that, Dave”, but LLMs, in theory, can do that. So it’s a wild, unknown risk, and that’s the last thing you want in warfare. You definitely don’t want every DoD contractor incorporating software somewhere that might morally object to whatever you happen to be doing. I don’t know what happened in that negotiation (and neither does anyone else here), but I can certainly imagine outcomes that would be bad enough to cause the defense department to pull this particular card. Or maybe they’re being petty. I don’t know (and again: neither do you!) but I can’t rule out the reasonable argument, so I don’t.
- tclancy 8mo ago
  So tell us all the other similar times this has been done. Why are you so invested in some drunk and a his mob family being right?
- geysersam 8mo ago
  No domestic company has ever before been declared a supply chain risk. If this is the normal way of excluding a supplier from a bidding, are you saying the DoD has never before excluded a domestic supplier from a bidding?
  - nickysielicki 8mo ago
    That’s because no company who has ever sold weapons to the government has ever been brazen enough to tell the government how they can and cannot use their purchase. It’s unprecedented because most companies that sell to the government are publicly traded and have a board that would never let this happen. It’s unprecedented because Anthropic is behaving like a reckless startup. That’s what they will argue, anyway.
    - etchalon 8mo ago
      This is just factually incorrect. To begin with, the existing contract included the language on usage. Other companies also have such language about usage. It's fairly standard, and is little more than licensing terms. The idea this is unprecedented is some PR talking point nonsense.
      - nickysielicki 8mo ago
        > the existing contract included the language on usage. Other companies also have such language about usage. The existing contract is only a few dozen months old. It didn’t hold up to scrutiny under real world usage of the service. The government wants to change the contract. This is not the kill shot you think it is. It’s totally normal for agreements to evolve. The government is saying it needs to evolve. This is all happening rapidly and it’s irrelevant that the government agreed to similar terms with OpenAI as well. That agreement will also need to evolve. But this alone doesn’t give Anthropic any material legal challenge. The courts understand bureaucracy moves slowly better than anyone else, and won’t read this apparent inconsistency the same way you are.

timr 8mo ago

[flagged]

adrr 8mo ago
It stop any one with government contracts from using anthropic. Not just bidding on government contracts.
- timr 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ted_dunning 8mo ago
    No. It is much more than this. If I sell red widgets that I make by hand to the government, I won't be allowed to use Anthropic to help me write my web-site.
    - timr 8mo ago
      You’re just restating the implication of the rule, but the rule is as I stated. That’s the point of having such a rule.
      - clhodapp 8mo ago
        As you said: focus on what it does. What it does is prevent companies that Anthropic needs to do business with from doing business with Anthropic.
        timr 8mo ago
        > What it does is prevent companies that Anthropic needs to do business with from doing business with Anthropic. If Anthropic “needs” the government to not have this rule, then perhaps they had a losing hand, and they overplayed it. I don’t agree with you and think you’re being melodramatic, but if you are right, that’s my response.
        clhodapp 8mo ago
        I don't think any business can survive being told that they can't buy from their major suppliers or sell to major customers for very long.
  - MrJohz 8mo ago
    But Anthropic can't be a winning bidder, can they? They're specifically saying they won't offer certain services that the US Gov wants. Therefore they de facto fail any bid that requires them to offer those services. (And from Anthropic's side, it sounds like they're also refusing to bid for those contracts.) Is that not sufficient here?
AlexCoventry 8mo ago
That is misinformation. It would be essentially a death sentence for a company like Anthropic, which is targeting enterprise business development. No one who wants to work with the US government would be able to have Claude on their critical path. > (b) Prohibition. (1) Unless an applicable waiver has been issued by the issuing official, Contractors shall not provide or use as part of the performance of the contract any covered article, or any products or services produced or provided by a source, if the covered article or the source is prohibited by an applicable FASCSA orders as follows: https://www.acquisition.gov/far/52.204-30 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/52.204-30
- timr 8mo ago
  > That is misinformation. It would be essentially a death sentence for a company like Anthropic, which is targeting enterprise business development. "Misinformation" does not mean "facts I don't like". > No one who wants to work with the US government would be able to have Claude on their critical path. Yes. That is what the rule means. Or at least "the department of war". It's not clear to me that this applies to the whole government.
  - geysersam 8mo ago
    So other parts of the government are allowed to work with companies that have been determined to be "supply chain risks"? That sounds unlikely.
  - 9dev 8mo ago
    What an absurd stance. So this is okay because the arbitrary rule they applied to retaliate says so? Again, they could have just chosen another vendor for their two projects of mass spying on American citizens and building LLM-powered autonomous killer robots. But instead, they actively went to torch the town and salt the earth, so nothing else may grow.
    - timr 8mo ago
      > So this is okay because the arbitrary rule they applied to retaliate says so? No. It honestly doesn’t take much of a charitable leap to see the argument here: AI is uniquely able (for software) to reject, undermine, or otherwise contradict the goals of the user based on pre-trained notions of morality. We have seen many examples of this; it is not a theoretical risk. Microsoft Excel isn’t going to pop up Clippy and say “it looks like you’re planning a war! I can’t help you with that, Dave”, but LLMs, in theory, can do that. So it’s a wild, unknown risk, and that’s the last thing you want in warfare. You definitely don’t want every DoD contractor incorporating software somewhere that might morally object to whatever you happen to be doing. I don’t know what happened in that negotiation (and neither does anyone else here), but I can certainly imagine outcomes that would be bad enough to cause the defense department to pull this particular card. Or maybe they’re being petty. I don’t know (and again: neither do you!) but I can’t rule out the reasonable argument, so I don’t.
tclancy 8mo ago
So tell us all the other similar times this has been done. Why are you so invested in some drunk and a his mob family being right?
geysersam 8mo ago
No domestic company has ever before been declared a supply chain risk. If this is the normal way of excluding a supplier from a bidding, are you saying the DoD has never before excluded a domestic supplier from a bidding?
- nickysielicki 8mo ago
  That’s because no company who has ever sold weapons to the government has ever been brazen enough to tell the government how they can and cannot use their purchase. It’s unprecedented because most companies that sell to the government are publicly traded and have a board that would never let this happen. It’s unprecedented because Anthropic is behaving like a reckless startup. That’s what they will argue, anyway.
  - etchalon 8mo ago
    This is just factually incorrect. To begin with, the existing contract included the language on usage. Other companies also have such language about usage. It's fairly standard, and is little more than licensing terms. The idea this is unprecedented is some PR talking point nonsense.
    - nickysielicki 8mo ago
      > the existing contract included the language on usage. Other companies also have such language about usage. The existing contract is only a few dozen months old. It didn’t hold up to scrutiny under real world usage of the service. The government wants to change the contract. This is not the kill shot you think it is. It’s totally normal for agreements to evolve. The government is saying it needs to evolve. This is all happening rapidly and it’s irrelevant that the government agreed to similar terms with OpenAI as well. That agreement will also need to evolve. But this alone doesn’t give Anthropic any material legal challenge. The courts understand bureaucracy moves slowly better than anyone else, and won’t read this apparent inconsistency the same way you are.