6 ms·

Leaving autonomous weapons aside, how does Anthropic justifies that they signed up with surveillance company Palantir and now raising concerns for same surveill

Leaving autonomous weapons aside, how does Anthropic justifies that they signed up with surveillance company Palantir and now raising concerns for same surveillance with DoD? It doesn't match.

throwaway613746 7mo ago
[dead]
ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
It might match. The red line was domestic surveillance. You don't know what deal they had. Giving Anthropic the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Palantir said "Deal, we won't use your tool domestically".
- taurath 7mo ago
  Every single time the box is flipped over, whats inside is "more domestic surveillance". Who in their right mind would give the benefit of the doubt?
  - xvector 7mo ago
    Well, I think a company that stood their ground knowing full well they'd be designated a SCR deserves the benefit of the doubt.
  - ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
    > Who in their right mind would give the benefit of the doubt? I'm saying that we should give Anthropic the benefit of the doubt that when they say "our deal with Palantir doesn't cross our red line", we should believe Anthropic, that they have gotten an assurance from Palantir that they wouldn't use it domestically. I'm NOT saying we should give Palantir the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't commenting on "is giving AI to Palantir a good idea" (I don't think it is), I was commenting on "should we conclude that Anthropic is being dishonest because they claimed they have red lines but work with Palantir" (I think it's unclear, but there's a plausible explanation in which they're not being dishonest, but possibly naive, so give them the benefit of the doubt).
tbrockman 7mo ago
Whether you disagree with whether it truly aligns with their stated values, in their partnership with Palantir (making Claude available within their AI platform) they requested consistent restrictions: > “[We will] tailor use restrictions to the mission and legal authorities of a government entity” based on factors such as “the extent of the agency’s willingness to engage in ongoing dialogue,” Anthropic says in its terms. The terms, it notes, do not apply to AI systems it considers to “substantially increase the risk of catastrophic misuse,” show “low-level autonomous capabilities,” or that can be used for disinformation campaigns, the design or deployment of weapons, censorship, domestic surveillance, and malicious cyber operations. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/07/anthropic-teams-up-with-palantir-and-aws-to-sell-its-ai-to-defense-customers/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/07/anthropic-teams-up-with-pa...
freejazz 7mo ago
[flagged]
- xvector 7mo ago
  I wish people like you would actually talk to people at Anthropic, maybe interview with the company, actually engage with the real humans there before making blithe comments like this. Seriously, you're on HN, you can't possibly be that many degrees removed from someone at the company. In any case it's absolutely not "just marketing", it suffuses their whole culture, and it is genuine.
  - freejazz 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - xvector 7mo ago
      Just have an actual, good faith conversation with a real human working there instead of fighting/making assumptions about a strawman in your head.
      - freejazz 7mo ago
        I'm not talking about employees, I'm talking about the CEO. The fact that employees believe it means the marketing works. Everything about your posts makes my point. Anthropic is a business and that you believe they have a serious commitment to the PBC or any of that other stuff, then you have drank the kool-aid, full stop.
        xvector 7mo ago
        Really not sure how you can reconcile that with them making decisions that got them designated a SCR.
        freejazz 7mo ago
dmix 7mo ago
> signed up with surveillance company Palantir Just to nitpick, Palantir isn't doing surveillance like Flock. They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments. Some data pipelines include law enforcement surveillance data which get integrated with other software/databases to help police analyze it. There's no evidence they are collecting it themselves despite recent headlines. It's a relatively minor but important distinction IMO. https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/ https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/
- trinsic2 7mo ago
  They are providing the software to do surveillance, They are definetly bad actors, you can dance around this all you want, but they are in it.
  - gjsman-1000 7mo ago
    Nice assertion. Please provide citations, substance, or anything other than “you’re wrong definitely.”
    - bigyabai 7mo ago
      Iunno, this seems pretty dystopian to me: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/report-ice-using-palantir-tool-feeds-medicaid-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/report-ice-using-palan...
      - charcircuit 7mo ago
        The government knowing where you live is neither surveillance nor dystopian.
        bigyabai 7mo ago
        That depends very much on how they use and disseminate that information.
EA-3167 7mo ago
[flagged]
spaghetdefects 7mo ago
[flagged]
- jfengel 7mo ago
  If they're doing it against the terms of service (and publicly so), I can't pin that one on Anthropic. They've done lots wrong and maybe they shouldn't have gotten in bed with the military to begin with, but this illegal war is not theirs. It rests squarely with the President who declared it. (And with the military officers who are going along with it despite the violation of international law.)
  - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
    I don't think any AI company should get in bed with the military. That being said, if the terms of service have been violated, the account should be canceled.
    - hedora 7mo ago
      They basically are cancelling the contract, but there are some nuances on Anthropic's side. The contract probably has stipulations that prevent them from doing it overnight, so it might be illegal (but ethical) for them to just turn off the API keys. Also, doing that might have bad second order effects with bad ethical implications. For example, when Musk decided to pull the plug on a bunch of starlink terminals, he (intentionally and knowingly) blocked a US-funded attack that would have sunk a big chunk of the Russian navy, which certainly prolonged the Ukraine war. That was clearly an act of treason (illegal). Anyway, just turning off Claude could kill a bunch of civilians in the region or something. It depends on how deeply it's integrated into military logistics at this point. Anyway, your point certainly holds for OpenAI: They walked into a "use ChatGPT for war crimes, and illegal domestic surveillance / 'law enforcement'" deal with open eyes, and pretty obviously lied about it while the deal was being signed. I don't see any ethical nuance that would even partially excuse their actions.
  - nmfisher 7mo ago
    > If they're doing it against the terms of service (and publicly so), I can't pin that one on Anthropic. Anthropic claim that superintelligence is coming, that unaligned AI is an existential threat to humanity, and they are the only ones responsible enough to control it. If that's your world view, why would you be willing to accept someone's word that they'll only Do Good Things with it? And not just "someone", someone with access to the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal? A contract is meaningless if the world gets obliterated in nuclear war.
trinsic2 7mo ago
This exchange between Anthropic and OpenAI feels a lot like theater. If I was really trying to stop abuses I wouldn't going out of my way to talk about it. The "public sees us as the hero's" bullshit feels like a smoke screen. Id make one statement and keep silent and let the public do the math and not get involved.
elevation 7mo ago
The moral disposition of the Anthropic leaders doesn't matter because they don't own the company. Investors won't idly watch them decimate billions in ROI by alienating the largest institutional customers on the planet.
- bryant 7mo ago
  > The moral disposition of the Anthropic leaders doesn't matter because they don't own the company. Investors won't idly watch them decimate billions in ROI by alienating the largest institutional customers on the planet. Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation chartered in Delaware, with an expressed commitment to "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity." So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit.
  - freejazz 7mo ago
    > So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit. So why were they ever working with the military in the first instance, if that's the case? If you didn't gleam from OpenAI that it doesn't matter. Everyone is greedy and will jump ship for money if Anthropic does not get it for them.
Madmallard 7mo ago
They are all guilty.
sigmar 7mo ago
Why do you assume the contract with palantir doesn't have similar terms? Weird assumption.
pfisherman 7mo ago
This is very easy to explain. Anthropic outlines some limitations in their terms of service. Palantir accepted those terms. The DoD did not. OpenAI claims their terms of service for DoD contain the same limitations as Anthropics proposed service agreement. Anthropic claims that this is untrue. Now given that (a) the DoD terminated their deal with Anthropic, (b) stated that they terminated because Anthropic refused modify their terms of service, and (c) then signed a deal with openAI; I am inclined to believe that there is in fact a substantial difference between the terms of service offered by Anthropic and OpenAI.
- stingraycharles 7mo ago
  Yeah, it never made sense when Sam immediately said that they had the same constraints yet de DoW immediately agreed with that. From what I can see, OpenAI’s terms basically say “need to comply with the law”, which provides them with plenty of wiggle room with executive orders and whatnot.
  - ExoticPearTree 7mo ago
    I think they said they will comply with the law and Pentagon policies. And: 1. there is no law currently prohibiting autonomous weapons platforms 2. the Pentagon can create policies overnight allowing all kinds of stuff So yeah, OpenAI is going to make a lot of money from actually doing what the military asks from them.
    - cobbzilla 7mo ago
      Secret FISA court decisions are also law, the public just can’t see or challenge them. So we really have no idea what is considered lawful. If the contract says “all lawful use” it’s a blank check to the state.
- Loquebantur 7mo ago
  “We’ve actually held our red lines with integrity rather than colluding with them to produce ‘safety theater’ for the benefit of employees (which, I absolutely swear to you, is what literally everyone at [the Pentagon], Palantir, our political consultants, etc, assumed was the problem we were trying to solve),” Amodei reportedly wrote. “The real reasons [the Pentagon] and the Trump admin do not like us is that we haven’t donated to Trump (while OpenAI/Greg have donated a lot),” he wrote, referring to Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, who gave a Pac supporting Trump $25m in conjunction with his wife. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/sam-altman-openai-pentagon https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/sam-altma...
bko 7mo ago
[flagged]
- Spooky23 7mo ago
  It’s a service. Democracy doesn’t give the government the right to force you to perform a service. The technology isn’t suitable for the purposes the regime wants.
  - bko 7mo ago
    They can choose to sell to government agencies or not. But selling to them and then trying to have some veto power is wrong. So it sounds like we're in a agreement. I would like western Democratic powers to have the most advanced technology personally but you may disagree.
    - Spooky23 7mo ago
      Basically, yes. I've worked in government outside of the Federal level. The government has a moral and often legal incentive to do inefficient things for the simple reason that the work they do needs to be safe, controlled and deterministic. Any US state maintains a birth registry, death registry and DMV. But firewalls exist so that live links don't exist between these and other programs. It's inefficient, but avoids many hazards and conflicts in regulatory or legal compliance. For example, income tax information is secret, and cannot be shared outside of the tax processing scenario. Police investigatory data should not be linked to your unemployment claim. Fundamentally, those are examples of why the stuff that Palantir is doing is problematic. With military applications, it's even more fraught, and human life is in peril by design. It's important for a professional army like the US Army that strict discipline and rules of engagement are followed. Soldiers may find themselves in situations where people are shooting at them, and they are ordered to take no action. AI is not capable of functioning in that environment. My point is these are complex issues, and we are in a political environment where people seeking simple answers are looking at technology like AI to disconnect them from accountability. There's a nuance there, and a reason why Anthropic is willing to partner with Palantir for their work, but hesitant to powering drones that are dropping hellfire missiles on people.

Leaving autonomous weapons aside, how does Anthropic justifies that they signed up with surveillance company Palantir and now raising concerns for same surveillance with DoD? It doesn't match.

throwaway613746 7mo ago

[dead]

ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago

It might match. The red line was domestic surveillance. You don't know what deal they had. Giving Anthropic the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Palantir said "Deal, we won't use your tool domestically".

taurath 7mo ago
Every single time the box is flipped over, whats inside is "more domestic surveillance". Who in their right mind would give the benefit of the doubt?
- xvector 7mo ago
  Well, I think a company that stood their ground knowing full well they'd be designated a SCR deserves the benefit of the doubt.
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
  > Who in their right mind would give the benefit of the doubt? I'm saying that we should give Anthropic the benefit of the doubt that when they say "our deal with Palantir doesn't cross our red line", we should believe Anthropic, that they have gotten an assurance from Palantir that they wouldn't use it domestically. I'm NOT saying we should give Palantir the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't commenting on "is giving AI to Palantir a good idea" (I don't think it is), I was commenting on "should we conclude that Anthropic is being dishonest because they claimed they have red lines but work with Palantir" (I think it's unclear, but there's a plausible explanation in which they're not being dishonest, but possibly naive, so give them the benefit of the doubt).

tbrockman 7mo ago

Whether you disagree with whether it truly aligns with their stated values, in their partnership with Palantir (making Claude available within their AI platform) they requested consistent restrictions: > “[We will] tailor use restrictions to the mission and legal authorities of a government entity” based on factors such as “the extent of the agency’s willingness to engage in ongoing dialogue,” Anthropic says in its terms. The terms, it notes, do not apply to AI systems it considers to “substantially increase the risk of catastrophic misuse,” show “low-level autonomous capabilities,” or that can be used for disinformation campaigns, the design or deployment of weapons, censorship, domestic surveillance, and malicious cyber operations. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/07/anthropic-teams-up-with-palantir-and-aws-to-sell-its-ai-to-defense-customers/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/07/anthropic-teams-up-with-pa...

freejazz 7mo ago

[flagged]

xvector 7mo ago
I wish people like you would actually talk to people at Anthropic, maybe interview with the company, actually engage with the real humans there before making blithe comments like this. Seriously, you're on HN, you can't possibly be that many degrees removed from someone at the company. In any case it's absolutely not "just marketing", it suffuses their whole culture, and it is genuine.
- freejazz 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - xvector 7mo ago
    Just have an actual, good faith conversation with a real human working there instead of fighting/making assumptions about a strawman in your head.
    - freejazz 7mo ago
      I'm not talking about employees, I'm talking about the CEO. The fact that employees believe it means the marketing works. Everything about your posts makes my point. Anthropic is a business and that you believe they have a serious commitment to the PBC or any of that other stuff, then you have drank the kool-aid, full stop.
      - xvector 7mo ago
        Really not sure how you can reconcile that with them making decisions that got them designated a SCR.
        freejazz 7mo ago

dmix 7mo ago

> signed up with surveillance company Palantir Just to nitpick, Palantir isn't doing surveillance like Flock. They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments. Some data pipelines include law enforcement surveillance data which get integrated with other software/databases to help police analyze it. There's no evidence they are collecting it themselves despite recent headlines. It's a relatively minor but important distinction IMO. https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/ https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/

trinsic2 7mo ago
They are providing the software to do surveillance, They are definetly bad actors, you can dance around this all you want, but they are in it.
- gjsman-1000 7mo ago
  Nice assertion. Please provide citations, substance, or anything other than “you’re wrong definitely.”
  - bigyabai 7mo ago
    Iunno, this seems pretty dystopian to me: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/report-ice-using-palantir-tool-feeds-medicaid-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/report-ice-using-palan...
    - charcircuit 7mo ago
      The government knowing where you live is neither surveillance nor dystopian.
      - bigyabai 7mo ago
        That depends very much on how they use and disseminate that information.

EA-3167 7mo ago

[flagged]

spaghetdefects 7mo ago

[flagged]

jfengel 7mo ago
If they're doing it against the terms of service (and publicly so), I can't pin that one on Anthropic. They've done lots wrong and maybe they shouldn't have gotten in bed with the military to begin with, but this illegal war is not theirs. It rests squarely with the President who declared it. (And with the military officers who are going along with it despite the violation of international law.)
- spaghetdefects 7mo ago
  I don't think any AI company should get in bed with the military. That being said, if the terms of service have been violated, the account should be canceled.
  - hedora 7mo ago
    They basically are cancelling the contract, but there are some nuances on Anthropic's side. The contract probably has stipulations that prevent them from doing it overnight, so it might be illegal (but ethical) for them to just turn off the API keys. Also, doing that might have bad second order effects with bad ethical implications. For example, when Musk decided to pull the plug on a bunch of starlink terminals, he (intentionally and knowingly) blocked a US-funded attack that would have sunk a big chunk of the Russian navy, which certainly prolonged the Ukraine war. That was clearly an act of treason (illegal). Anyway, just turning off Claude could kill a bunch of civilians in the region or something. It depends on how deeply it's integrated into military logistics at this point. Anyway, your point certainly holds for OpenAI: They walked into a "use ChatGPT for war crimes, and illegal domestic surveillance / 'law enforcement'" deal with open eyes, and pretty obviously lied about it while the deal was being signed. I don't see any ethical nuance that would even partially excuse their actions.
- nmfisher 7mo ago
  > If they're doing it against the terms of service (and publicly so), I can't pin that one on Anthropic. Anthropic claim that superintelligence is coming, that unaligned AI is an existential threat to humanity, and they are the only ones responsible enough to control it. If that's your world view, why would you be willing to accept someone's word that they'll only Do Good Things with it? And not just "someone", someone with access to the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal? A contract is meaningless if the world gets obliterated in nuclear war.

trinsic2 7mo ago

This exchange between Anthropic and OpenAI feels a lot like theater. If I was really trying to stop abuses I wouldn't going out of my way to talk about it. The "public sees us as the hero's" bullshit feels like a smoke screen. Id make one statement and keep silent and let the public do the math and not get involved.

elevation 7mo ago

The moral disposition of the Anthropic leaders doesn't matter because they don't own the company. Investors won't idly watch them decimate billions in ROI by alienating the largest institutional customers on the planet.

bryant 7mo ago
> The moral disposition of the Anthropic leaders doesn't matter because they don't own the company. Investors won't idly watch them decimate billions in ROI by alienating the largest institutional customers on the planet. Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation chartered in Delaware, with an expressed commitment to "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity." So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit.
- freejazz 7mo ago
  > So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit. So why were they ever working with the military in the first instance, if that's the case? If you didn't gleam from OpenAI that it doesn't matter. Everyone is greedy and will jump ship for money if Anthropic does not get it for them.

Madmallard 7mo ago

They are all guilty.

sigmar 7mo ago

Why do you assume the contract with palantir doesn't have similar terms? Weird assumption.

pfisherman 7mo ago

This is very easy to explain. Anthropic outlines some limitations in their terms of service. Palantir accepted those terms. The DoD did not. OpenAI claims their terms of service for DoD contain the same limitations as Anthropics proposed service agreement. Anthropic claims that this is untrue. Now given that (a) the DoD terminated their deal with Anthropic, (b) stated that they terminated because Anthropic refused modify their terms of service, and (c) then signed a deal with openAI; I am inclined to believe that there is in fact a substantial difference between the terms of service offered by Anthropic and OpenAI.

stingraycharles 7mo ago
Yeah, it never made sense when Sam immediately said that they had the same constraints yet de DoW immediately agreed with that. From what I can see, OpenAI’s terms basically say “need to comply with the law”, which provides them with plenty of wiggle room with executive orders and whatnot.
- ExoticPearTree 7mo ago
  I think they said they will comply with the law and Pentagon policies. And: 1. there is no law currently prohibiting autonomous weapons platforms 2. the Pentagon can create policies overnight allowing all kinds of stuff So yeah, OpenAI is going to make a lot of money from actually doing what the military asks from them.
  - cobbzilla 7mo ago
    Secret FISA court decisions are also law, the public just can’t see or challenge them. So we really have no idea what is considered lawful. If the contract says “all lawful use” it’s a blank check to the state.
Loquebantur 7mo ago
“We’ve actually held our red lines with integrity rather than colluding with them to produce ‘safety theater’ for the benefit of employees (which, I absolutely swear to you, is what literally everyone at [the Pentagon], Palantir, our political consultants, etc, assumed was the problem we were trying to solve),” Amodei reportedly wrote. “The real reasons [the Pentagon] and the Trump admin do not like us is that we haven’t donated to Trump (while OpenAI/Greg have donated a lot),” he wrote, referring to Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, who gave a Pac supporting Trump $25m in conjunction with his wife. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/sam-altman-openai-pentagon https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/sam-altma...

bko 7mo ago

[flagged]

Spooky23 7mo ago
It’s a service. Democracy doesn’t give the government the right to force you to perform a service. The technology isn’t suitable for the purposes the regime wants.
- bko 7mo ago
  They can choose to sell to government agencies or not. But selling to them and then trying to have some veto power is wrong. So it sounds like we're in a agreement. I would like western Democratic powers to have the most advanced technology personally but you may disagree.
  - Spooky23 7mo ago
    Basically, yes. I've worked in government outside of the Federal level. The government has a moral and often legal incentive to do inefficient things for the simple reason that the work they do needs to be safe, controlled and deterministic. Any US state maintains a birth registry, death registry and DMV. But firewalls exist so that live links don't exist between these and other programs. It's inefficient, but avoids many hazards and conflicts in regulatory or legal compliance. For example, income tax information is secret, and cannot be shared outside of the tax processing scenario. Police investigatory data should not be linked to your unemployment claim. Fundamentally, those are examples of why the stuff that Palantir is doing is problematic. With military applications, it's even more fraught, and human life is in peril by design. It's important for a professional army like the US Army that strict discipline and rules of engagement are followed. Soldiers may find themselves in situations where people are shooting at them, and they are ordered to take no action. AI is not capable of functioning in that environment. My point is these are complex issues, and we are in a political environment where people seeking simple answers are looking at technology like AI to disconnect them from accountability. There's a nuance there, and a reason why Anthropic is willing to partner with Palantir for their work, but hesitant to powering drones that are dropping hellfire missiles on people.