10 ms·

Pentagon formally labels Anthropic supply-chain risk

432 points by klausa 8mo ago

cakealert 8mo ago
[flagged]
- kelnos 8mo ago
  Because it's not a military asset? It's a privately-owned asset.
  - cakealert 8mo ago
    > Because it's not a military asset? It's a privately-owned asset. Are you under the impression that the military is submitting Anthropic API calls? Whatever model the military is using is as much of an asset as the F35 they purchased. Depending on their agreements, you could argue it's a rented asset. Doesn't change any calculus.
    - gAI 8mo ago
      status.claude.com shows the uptime for the government cloud service. It's running in-part on an AWS server.
    - monocasa 8mo ago
      And the F35 comes with tons of contract terms in favor of the manufacturer. Like I've heard about how planes have been grounded because although an air base has the parts and mechanics rated to perform the repair on site, the servicing contract only allows it to be performed by the service contractors who needed to be flown in.
      - Jtsummers 8mo ago
        The DOD can't even force companies to hand over data, such as schematics, if it wasn't in the original contract without providing extra payment negotiated with the contractor, and they can't force the contractor to set a particular price. This has happened on numerous systems. One of the biggest I'm aware of was the H-60 where the DOD ended up reverse engineering the early helicopters in order to maintain them, all because the DOD program office forgot to include a data rights clause in the contract (Sikorski didn't forget, they just didn't remind the DOD).
    - BoiledCabbage 8mo ago
      > Depending on their agreements, you could argue it's a rented asset. Doesn't change any calculus. I think your mistakenly thinking of it as an asset. It's not as asset like a house, it's a service. They have a service contract. They have uptime and SLA commitments. That contract has parameters, and changing those parameters means a new contract. A similar service would be signing up a private company to do intelligence gathering and analysis for the DoD in Asia. They find a company that specializes in Asia and sign a contract. They give them work and the contractors fulfill it. Coming back and saying "we want you now to give us analysis for important decisions in South America." The company would reasonably reply "we don't have the skills to do that in South America. Our team knows nothing about South Am, we're no better than someone off the street at that. There is no credibility behind anything we'd say about South America. And on top our contract was foe Asia". If we want to discuss a plan for hiring people for South Am let's discuss it, but that's a new contract." And then the DoD saying they're a supply chain risk makes no sense. Or if you want an even more and hyperbolic example they cant take those data analysis to and say we're sending them ti the front lines of Iran. The company say no, and the DoD replying "you're a supply chain risk". They are not renting people, they are signing for a service of data analysis. Similarly they are not renting hardware they are signing for an LLM/intelligence service.
    - randallsquared 8mo ago
      > Are you under the impression that the military is submitting Anthropic API calls? Yes? I assume that it's not in a government owned and operated datacenter, but likely in AWS (govcloud or whatever) and maintained/serviced by Anthropic SREs like I suppose regular Claude is.
- Rudybega 8mo ago
  Anthropic and the military had a contract. The military wanted to change the terms of that contract. Anthropic said no, which is their clearly defined contractual right. They got labeled a supply chain risk. How is this anything other than a shakedown? Does contract law mean anything to this administration?
  - cakealert 8mo ago
    The other such labeled companies have contracts too.
    - timmmmmmay 8mo ago
      no, the other such labeled companies are foreign owned firms like Huawei that the government never intended to do business with in the first place
    - mediaman 8mo ago
      10 USC 3252 has only been used once, against Acronis AG, a Swiss company with Russian connections. Acronis did not have DOD contracts. Other companies (Huawei) have been deemed risks under different laws, or by Congress, but they also didn't have direct DOD contracts. Do you have any evidence for your assertion? Did you check if it is true before posting?
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
- ok_dad 8mo ago
  The legal definition of supply chain risk: > “Supply chain risk” means the risk that an adversary may sabotage, maliciously introduce unwanted function, or otherwise subvert the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of a covered system so as to surveil, deny, disrupt, or otherwise degrade the function, use, or operation of such system (see 10 U.S.C. 3252). Naming a US company a "supply chain risk" is basically saying "this company is an adversary of the USA", which is FUCKING INSANE.
  - yoyohello13 8mo ago
    They think anyone who isn't a republican is an adversary of the USA.
- pmarreck 8mo ago
  Congratulations, you are clearly the smartest person on this forum, and I don’t mean that facetiously. The number of naïve comments here is absolutely astounding. It would be like a spouse proposing restrictions and terms of their access to your phone contingent on you marrying them. Assuming guilt until proven innocent
  - xpe 8mo ago
    > It would be like a spouse proposing restrictions and terms of their access to your phone contingent on you marrying them. It is easy to cherry pick one metaphor. We owe it to ourselves to think better than that. What happens when you analyze this overall situation in all of its richness from multiple points of view and then seek synthesis? Speaking for myself, I would want to know your (1) probabilistic priors: the Bayesian equivalent of "disclosing your biases"; (2) supporting information; (3) conflicting information: I want to know that you aren't just ignoring it; (4) various theories/models you considered; (5) overall probabilistic take. All in all, I'm uninterested in analysis disconnected from the historical particulars. Few people have the skillset and time to dig in properly. I suggest starting with "A Tale of Three Contracts" by Zvi Mowshowitz [1] In my experience, you would be hard-pressed to find anything around AI of this quality in the usual mainstream publications. [1] https://thezvi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-three-contracts https://thezvi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-three-contracts
  - kevinwang 8mo ago
    Even in your analogy, it's appropriate to reject the terms of marriage and not wed this person. But it's unprecedented to also vindictively ruin their life (e.g. by unilaterally putting them in jail)
- xpe 8mo ago
  > There are game theoretic reasons why a military should never accept any external restrictions on an asset. 1. Last week I made a case for why DoD, if rational, would accept limited use under a consequentialist decision theory frame: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47190039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47190039 2. One what basis is it rational to give the current administration (the leadership) the benefit of the doubt w.r.t. having a sincere drive towards advancing the national security of the United States? The evidence highly points in the other direction: towards corruption, political ends, and narcissistic whims.
- mitthrowaway2 8mo ago
  Because last time I checked, private companies that voluntarily offer a service to the government on contract terms are free to put whatever restrictions they want into their contract, and the government is free to not sign it if they don't like it? Or is, say, FedEx now a supply chain risk too, if they happened to offer parcel delivery services for the DoD and put in a clause excluding delivery to active war zones?
m_ke 8mo ago
We can all thank the VCs and CEOs who fully embraced and enabled this administration
- strange_quark 8mo ago
  We're all trying to find the guy who did this!
- hypeatei 8mo ago
  And 32% of eligible voters that thought Kamala would've been worse.
  - m_ke 8mo ago
    Don't blame the voters, they didn't get to pick her and did not run her campaign.
    - hypeatei 8mo ago
      Oh no, I will. They're absolutely culpable.
      - m_ke 8mo ago
        I think the DNC and the media might need to get some of that blame for being empty vessels for corporate interests that allowed this conman to get elected twice
        osiris970 8mo ago
        Voters knew who trump was and chose him. They deserve all the blame. As a voting adult ur choices have consequences. All voters who voted trump or third party deserve all the consequences
_2d30 8mo ago
Naturally OpenAI also releases their new model on the same day. Makes sense, obviously, but yeesh.
jawns 8mo ago
The consequence is that any company that does business with the U.S. military, and potentially any company that does business with the government in general, must stop using Anthropic's products for that work. Anthropic has vowed to fight this designation in court. Without weighing in on the constitutionality or legality of the move, I think it's obvious that this kind of retaliation power is unmatched by any private business that has a contractual dispute. If a private business doesn't like Anthropic's terms, it can walk away from the deal, but it can't conduct coordinated retaliation with other companies before ending up in antitrust territory or potentially violating the Sherman Act. Now for my editorializing: The fact that Pete Hegseth is willing to apply this type of designation against a U.S. company simply because he doesn't like its terms is pretty chilling. It's all the more scary once you consider which terms he objects to.
- mitthrowaway2 8mo ago
  Every action has an opposite reaction. The DoD has made itself riskier to do business with, and future contacts will have to price that risk in.
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    FedRAMP and FedRAMP adjacent revenue is non-negotiable for vast swathes of businesses. The designation of "supply chain risk" is viral in nature because no GRC team will dare take such a risk within their supply chain because most customers add BOM requirements in contracts so this will end up falling under those already. There's a lot of backchanneling going on between Emil and Dario because everyone's in the same circles but it's all for naught.
  - stefan_ 8mo ago
    The DoD has been rather consistent that they will decide what to do with a product sold to them, not some random vendor. There is nothing extra to "price in".
    - nkohari 8mo ago
      The "extra" is that the government is now attempting to unilaterally renegotiate contracts, and if the contractor disagrees, not only do they terminate the agreement but they restrict how other companies can work with you.
scuff3d 8mo ago
Huh, and I thought conservatives were all about government staying our of the way of the private sector. Go figure...
- ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
  StOp MaKiNg EvErYtHiNg PolItIcaL
  - bdangubic 8mo ago
    In an article that discusses Pentagon doing stupid shit? :)
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      That was without a doubt meant sarcastic.
      - ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
        Of course it was, thank you.
        jacquesm 8mo ago
        It's incredible that this needed to be explained.
    - ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
      As the sibling explained, it was sarcasm. It was satire of brain dead right wingers saying "stop making everything political" when political points apply, but then making things political politcal in stupid situations. Example, someone shoots up a school, people say "if the Republican party hadn't obstructed gun legislation maybe this wouldn't have happened", they respond "StOp MaKiNg EvErYtHiNg PolItIcaL". But if the person is trans suddenly it's political.
- tantalor 8mo ago
2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago
Fascism
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
nickysielicki 8mo ago
Does anyone know which law firm is representing anthropic?
- grvbck 8mo ago
  For now it's in-house counsel Jeffrey Bleich, former special counsel to President Obama. https://www.inc.com/chris-morris/legal-legend-leading-anthropic-battle-with-the-pentagon/91311053 https://www.inc.com/chris-morris/legal-legend-leading-anthro...
- tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - LightBug1 8mo ago
    Well, would you want to given the rotten-KFC-stench of the current admin?
  - Tyrubias 8mo ago
    Tainted? Because they refused to change a contract that was already signed to allow for surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous kill bots? I guarantee, if a sane and non-fascist administration ever takes power again Anthropic will be forgiven. Being attacked by this administration is an honor. OpenAI on the other hand…
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
seydor 8mo ago
A reminder to Anthropic, european residence visas start at $250K
mrtksn 8mo ago
Isn’t it actually quite fair that if you are not compliant with whatever the government wants you to do you will be supplying chain risk? For example from history we know that Schindler from Schindler's List was indeed a supply chain risk. He harbored persecuted people, he took and sabotaged government contracts. He did the moral but anti-government and illegal things. He was corrupt traitor from governments perspective. The current US government already is labeled as fascist by many, the guy who designated Anthropic supply chain risk is allegedly a war criminal. I don’t see why anyone not into these things would not be a supply chain risk. I know that its very unpopular or divisive to say this but Anthropic can be a hero only after all this is over. At this time people in charge do double tap on survivors and take pride for not having conscience, they give speeches about these things.
- dralley 8mo ago
  Anthropic and the Government both signed a contract. Anthropic is still abiding the terms of that contract. The Government is demanding that they be able to disobey the contract.
  - mrtksn 8mo ago
    Implementation details TBH. They want “their boys” to do as said. No respect to agreement or legality as we can see in other dealings. They hold all they cards.
    - stonogo 8mo ago
      It's not an "implementation detail." Either obeying contract law subjects you to being designated a supply-chain risk, or it does not, and that decision has ramifications outside this "implementation."
      - mrtksn 8mo ago
        Irrelevant. The president holds all the cards, he is above the law and you are a supply chain risk if you ask anything else other than “how high” when you are told to jump. Laws or contracts are things in the past. The most a contract can do is define your limits and obligations, not your rights or privileges,
mentalgear 8mo ago
I said it before and I say it again: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent. And to add to this quoting another commentator on the issue: First the Meritocracy goes, then the Freedom goes.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- exceptione 8mo ago
  You can download the manual from kremlin.gov, and I am only half-joking here.
- bdangubic 8mo ago
  That is already started to happen but it cannot happen overnight. Not only is it not easy but finding alternatives is also not easy. Just think of from your own personal perspective, say you have $100m right now invested in US business and wisely you say "I gotta get my shit away from this mess" - where exactly would you park your assets? You will find a way of course but you won't be moving $100m elsewhere overnight
- hungryhobbit 8mo ago
  Rational investors live in reality. In reality, a great deal of business conducted throughout the world involves graft; companies accept that, and keep doing business. It's not a good thing, AT ALL. There's a huge loss of overall productivity when you have corrupt systems (see Russia), which is why modern governments have worked so hard to lower corruption. But Trump ruining all that isn't going to end business ... it's just going to make everyone pay more for everything.
  - watwut 8mo ago
    > which is why modern governments have worked so hard to lower corruption I would argue that they did not. They should have and some were better then others. But, bulk of financial markets, all of predictionmarkets and crypto, startups and sillicon valley, Musk imperium, Thiel, Murdock, all run on corruption. And to large extend, Trump is the endgame of that.
oompydoompy74 8mo ago
Exported all my chats and deleted my ChatGPT account yesterday. The current administration not liking you is the strongest signal I could possibly have to go all in on a particular company.
- soupfordummies 8mo ago
  Are you able to view your chats through the .html file in the export? Mine are all garbled, like the JSON's not being parsed properly or something.
- tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mpalmer 8mo ago
    Maybe look up civil disobedience?
  - kelnos 8mo ago
    That's not civil disobedience. It's voting with your wallet.
- silveira 8mo ago
  Thanks, I had deleted the app from all my devices but not deleted the account. I have deleted my account now too.
- surgical_fire 8mo ago
  Eh, they are all morally indefensible. Anthropic had no problems to do business with the current administration until now. Are we to pretend it was all for happy purposes until now?
  - ecshafer 8mo ago
    Yeah how could Anthropic do business with the democratically elected government of the United States?
jmspring 8mo ago
Next up, after some sort of bribe, the administration opens up Qwen models to be used by the Pentagon.
baxtr 8mo ago
I would love to understand in more detail what kind of use cases we’re talking about. Is this about locating the right target for a sortie for example?
- hk__2 8mo ago
  > I would love to understand in more detail what kind of use cases we’re talking about. The whole point is that the use-case does not matter; either you allow the government to do everything they want, either you don’t.
  - pirate787 8mo ago
    either you allow a democratically elected government to do everything they want that is legal, or you insert private corporate decision-making into every government decision which is untenable
    - sodality2 8mo ago
      Is there any evidence that going outside the scope of the agreement would amount to anything more than a contract violation? Are we really to expect that Anthropic general counsel sits at the API gates allowing or blocking requests? More generally, are there any comparable contract requirements in the field of defense, for a company in the same position as Anthropic? I'm curious.
    - _heimdall 8mo ago
      You're missing the huge step that the government asking for "all legal uses" terminology is also who decides what is legal. Congress isn't willing to act as a check on executive power, meaning the contract they demanded simply says "I do what I want."
    - realo 8mo ago
      Sure... So the USA of Trump have just decided to stop themselves and all their military suppliers from using the very best coding tools. I suppose the USA's frenemies will jump on the occasion and use the incredible opportunity offered to them in a silver platter.
wrs 8mo ago
Once again our leadership is "playing government" like a bunch of 12-year-olds, lashing out impulsively without thinking of the consequences. And no doubt once again it'll take a year for this to wind its way through the legal system and be reversed long after the damage is done, as is finally happening with the tariff fiasco.
pinkmuffinere 8mo ago
https://archive.ph/IVDtq https://archive.ph/IVDtq
eth0up 8mo ago
First, I personally predict, for myself, Anthropic will bend soon and this will be history. The last I commented about LLMs I was ad hominem'd with "schizophrenic" and such. That's annoying but doesn't deter either my strange research or concerns, in this case, regarding the direction LLMs are heading. Of 4 frontier models, one is not yet connected to the DOD(or w). While such connections are not immediate evidence, I think it's rational to consider possible consequences of this arrangement. By title, there's a gap, real or perceived between the plebeian and mil version. But the relationship could involve mission creep or additional strings as things progress. We have already a strong trend for these models replacing conventional Internet searches. Not consummate yet, there is a centralizing force occuring, and despite being trained on enormous bodies of data, we know weights and safety rails can affect output, and bearing in mind the many things that could be labeled or masquerade as safety rails, could be formidable biases. I frequently observe corporate friendly results in my model interactions, where clearly, honesty and integrity are secondary to agenda. As I often say this is not emergent, nor does it need be. Meanwhile we see LLMs being integrated into nearly everything, from browsers to social profiling companies (lexis nexis, palantir, etc) to email to local shopping centers and the legal system. 'Open' models cannot compete with the budgets of the big four. Though thank god they exist. But I expect serious regulation attempts soon. My concerns with AI are manifold, and here on hn, affiliated by some, with paranoia or worse. And it seems to me, many of the most knowledgeable and informed underestimate LLMs the most, while the ignorant conflate them to presently unrealistic degrees. But every which way I perceive this technology, I see epic, paradigm smashing, severe implications in every direction. One thing of many that gets little attention is documentation vs reality regarding multiple aspects of AI, e.g. where the training vs privacy boundaries really are if anywhere. As they integrate more and more tightly with common everyday activities, they will learn more and more. A random concern of mine is illustrated by the Xfinity microwave technology which uses a router to visualize or process biological activity interacting with other wifi signals. Standalone, it's sensitive enough to determine animals from adult humans. Take for example the Range-R, a handheld device, sensitive enough to detect breathing through several walls. Well, mix this with AI and we get interesting times. I could go on, or post essays, but I such is not well received in this savage land. The military intervention with AI, aside from being objectively necessary or inevitable in some ways (ways I am not comfortable with), I find it foreboding, or portending. I see very little discussion on the implications, so figured I see if anyone had anything to say other than to call me a schizophrenic and criticize my writing. * *See comment history
Herring 8mo ago
Since the end of WW2, and especially since the end of the Cold War, Democratic administrations have presided over significantly higher job growth than Republican administrations. https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZXZLAMEEVJHZRDDY5LGDFZ3OEQ.png https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.c...
- keithnz 8mo ago
  this isn't on topic at all
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - teachrdan 8mo ago
    I think the implication is that democratic presidents are less likely to do dumb shit like this, which harms the economy.
    - shimman 8mo ago
      On the contrary, hopefully this gives the next democratic administration ammunition to take down big tech. Might as well classify Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple as supply-chain risks too with this logic. Too bad that Congress has abdicated their responsibility to the executive branch, no reason why Congress couldn't have more control over the Pentagon. The President only has legal authority to command forces, not control an entire institution; but this would require Congress actually doing their job and not justifying more corporate welfare forever.
    - Herring 8mo ago
      A lot of people love watching dumb shit, like watching reality tv. Crucially also they often love doing dumb shit. It's a privilege they don't want to give up, like pretending gravity doesn't apply to you.
      - 8mo ago
germandiago 8mo ago
This is awful. That a disagreement tjat involves politics can make a company ruined is really awful. The civil society should be quite concerned about this kind of attacks.
- softwaredoug 8mo ago
  It opens the door for Democratic administrations to do the same to vendors for their own political reasons. That’s ultimately why Ted Cruz spoke out about the Kimmel cancelation. It doesn’t take long until those powers are turned against you.
  - Analemma_ 8mo ago
    Yeah, now that this door is cracked open, it's now possible to decapitate SpaceX, which is at least as natsec-critical as Anthropic. The owner is a drug addict, has business interests in China, and is a Russian sympathizer (recall all the restrictions on Ukraine using Starlink), which all together is way stronger evidence for SCR designation than anything Anthropic has done. They're quickly going to come to regret opening this can of worms, but what else is new.
    - tw04 8mo ago
      Trump isn’t planning on ever leaving office before his death. His sycophants will just say yes in the hopes of unconditional pardons. They know they’ll never hold a position of power again so they’re grabbing everything they can while they can.
  - thinkingtoilet 8mo ago
    I love when a Republican does something awful the response is "but what about if Democrats do that same awful thing to us!" as opposed to discussing and admitting that the Republicans did something awful.
    - softwaredoug 8mo ago
      The only way you convince Republicans it’s awful is by reminding Republicans power can be abused in both directions.
mdni007 8mo ago
[flagged]
- zthrowaway 8mo ago
  Mark Levin is that you?
- mmastrac 8mo ago
  I really can't tell if this is snark or not.
martinwright 8mo ago
Part of me wonders if it was a plan to squeeze between Anthropic & big gov contracts
- yoyohello13 8mo ago
  I'm willing to bet is was a golf course conversation. "Hey why is the gov using Anthorpic over OpenAI, don't you know how much money I've donated?"
tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
[flagged]
neves 8mo ago
Is this the reason Claude models disappeared from AWS cloud in Brazil?
wg0 8mo ago
Has this happened before?
- gAI 8mo ago
  Not to a US company.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  You can ask that question every other hour.
hedayet 8mo ago
So, DoD has done what it said it would. And OpenAI has jumped on the opportunity. I'm curious what'll openai signatories on notdivided.org do now - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47188473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47188473 Remain undivided in spirit while grinding for OpenAI?
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- shimman 8mo ago
  They'll do nothing. It's really hard to take the morals of these devs seriously when they're already fine working for, and have a history with, some of the most evil companies in current existence.
  - Computer0 8mo ago
    And when you suggest unions and worker organization to them they gloat that the company takes better care of them without it. They don't want to be in the same class as the peasantry.
- burkaman 8mo ago
  "jumped on the opportunity" is possible, but per https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-whole-thing-was-scam https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-whole-thing-was-scam it's plausible that OpenAI created this situation through straightforward bribery.
  - surprisetalk 8mo ago
    > OpenAI exec becomes top Trump donor with $25 million gift > https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/brockman-openai-top-trump-donor-21273419.php https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/brockman-openai-top-trum...
  - phba 8mo ago
    Maybe this is the first step towards the Big Beautiful Bailout when the AI bubble inevitably pops.
blueblisters 8mo ago
It might be that this admin does not have the capacity to reason about second or third order effects. But given that what would typically be red lines for previous administrations have been brazenly crossed without consequences, why would they bother?
- andrewstuart2 8mo ago
  Crossing red lines for previous administrations is clearly a goal at this point.
- theshrike79 8mo ago
  Nope, they don't have that capacity. It's been shown multiple times in the past year. Shutting down USAID being the clearest one. They just saw "they help brown people in other countries with our money" and shut it down. Fuck all second and third order effects that actually benefited the US.
yoyohello13 8mo ago
Of course. Hegseth said it, there is no way they could back out. Looking 'weak' is the worst possible thing for this admin. They would rather look childish, stupid, and evil, as long as they don't look 'weak'. Especially 'weak' things like 'caring about people'.
neogodless 8mo ago
Previous information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186677 I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk (twitter.com/secwar) 5 days ago, 1083+ comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189441 Anthropic says it will challenge Pentagon supply chain risk designation in court (reuters.com) 5 days ago, 37+ comments
adamtaylor_13 8mo ago
Writing out a thought I had, someone please critique my reasoning here... What if Anthropic just shrugged, dissolved the company and open-sourced all of the Opus weights? Could this harm OpenAI and advance AI in a reasonable way? Look I know it's an insane idea. I'm just curious what the most unhinged response to this might be.
- stirlo 8mo ago
  There’s plenty of markets outside the pentagon to sell to. Far more likely is they spin up a defence focused subsidiary with slightly different policies if they really want to sell to them.
- BoiledCabbage 8mo ago
  > Look I know it's an insane idea. I'm just curious what the most unhinged response to this might be. I mean what if all the employees stripped off their clothes and walked through the streets naked while barking, then called up their middle school math teachers and barked live dogs then moved to a commune and stood on their heads. > Writing out a thought I had, someone please critique my reasoning here... I mean to critique your reasoning, it makes sense to also include a criteria of something they might reasonably do. There are an infinite number of unhinged things a group of people could in theory do. But maybe start with something they would actually have an incentive to do. Why would they voluntarily dissolve their company, put themselves out of work, release their crown jewels and get nothing for it? Yes it's unhinged but unless I'm missing something bug, they wouldn't do that because they wouldn't at all want that to happen.
- xpe 8mo ago
  > I'm just curious what the most unhinged response to this might be. Are you asking how dangerous open-weight models are? You could start with: Ryan Greenblatt on the AI Alignment Forum : "When is it important that open-weight models aren't released?" https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/TeF8Az2EiWenR9APF/when-is-it-important-that-open-weight-models-aren-t-released https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/TeF8Az2EiWenR9APF/when-... From the Centre for Future Generations : "Can open-weight models ever be safe?" https://cfg.eu/can-open-weight-models-ever-be-safe/ https://cfg.eu/can-open-weight-models-ever-be-safe/ From OpenAI authors, far from neutral : "Estimating Worst-Case Frontier Risks of Open-Weight LLMs" https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03153 https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03153
hax0ron3 8mo ago
I am a political moderate who dislikes both the Democrats and Republicans. I think that I have been fair to the Trump administration in the past, including occasionally defending them from some of the less reality-based accusations against them. I canceled my ChatGPT subscription a couple of days ago. In my opinion the Trump administration has become far too much of an "imperial Presidency" in its acts of war and its attempts to bully companies. It is also corrupt on a massive scale. I distrust anyone who thinks "yes, I'd like to work with this administration".
- blipvert 8mo ago
  Genuine question - was your fair consideration prior to or after J6?
  - hax0ron3 8mo ago
    Both.
    - blipvert 8mo ago
      Interesting
infogulch 8mo ago
The US Military's demand that the product they purchase is able to be used for all lawful purposes seems pretty reasonable, and is really the only valid line to draw. Forcing one's own ethics onto the military's use of your product is nonsensical on its face.
- watwut 8mo ago
  It is completely normal to have ethics based conditions like that. It already eciats - drugs that can not be used in execution or elements that cant be used in arms Goverment is being super unreasonable here. And tyrannical too, companies dont have duty to provide unreliable arms for illegal war.
- ssl-3 8mo ago
  If I produce and sell widgets in my widget shop, then nobody but me gets to decide how I make those widgets. The government can come into my shop and order sixty thousand widgets built exactly the way they say they want them built, and it may be something that doesn't run afoul of any laws at all. But that doesn't mean that I am required or compelled to build widgets their way -- or at all. I'm free to tell them to fuck off. The government can then find go someone else to build widgets to their specifications (or not; that's very distinctly not my problem).
  - basket_horse 8mo ago
    And that’s what’s happening here. The government is telling Anthropic to fuck off and they are finding someone else
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - RoddaWallPro 8mo ago
      Actually, that is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that the govt is saying "Okay, we will not buy your widgets. Also, anyone who _does_ buy your widgets, regardless of what they are doing with them, we the government will not do any business with them." Which is waayyyy beyond just not buying widgets. That is outright retaliation and using your power to attempt to destroy a company.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
softwaredoug 8mo ago
These bullies wilt when everyone stands up in one voice. But when some parties capitulate (OpenAI), it sets a precedent that this behavior is OK. And then it’s not long until you become the target.
- hsbauauvhabzb 8mo ago
  I’m not sure that’s how billionaires think.
Waterluvian 8mo ago
It was really easy to close out my ChatGPT account and switch to Claude. I was really only there out of inertia. I don’t do anything beyond occasional free tier stuff like rubber ducking but so far Claude is so much better.
- jdndbdjsj 8mo ago
  I prefer the claude code CLI interface for everything anyway. It is actually more convenient. Memory is local files, type one word to use rather than navigate.
- alanwreath 8mo ago
  But for how long? If Claude is a supply chain risk. That means anyone hosting him would also be a supply chain risk. Ergo AWS/Azure/GCP - nobody will host them because it’s Anthropic or the lucrative government contracts. Hegseth/Trump didn’t just say “you’ll never do business with the US” - it’s that they will never do business IN the US. Hopefully that means they’ll be able to take up shop elsewhere in the world.
- PoignardAzur 8mo ago
  I had already been trying Le Chat for months, for similar reasons. So far it's been slart enough for what I need, so closing my ChatGPT subscription was a really easy decision to make.
eikenberry 8mo ago
Could this be the chain of events that finally pops the AI bubble? If OpenAI's reputation hit slows growth enough to scare off investors and Anthropic's growth stalls due to this government attack...
- scottyah 8mo ago
  I think it's a good chance tbh. It would take the S&P down with it too
  - arppacket 8mo ago
    Of course it's going to be this government that goes and pokes the bubble that's propping up the economy, despite all the government's other shenanigans.
readytion 8mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
6thbit 8mo ago
Does this mean nobody on a large company selling to government can use any Anthropic tool or model? So that’s most of sp500 and their providers?
- xvector 8mo ago
  Only for work directly on government contracts, 99% of work is unaffected
cush 8mo ago
Is Claude Code's outputted code also part of the supply chain risk?
Chance-Device 8mo ago
Anthropic should never have gotten into bed with the military or intelligence services to begin with. They wanted to make a deal with the devil and dictate the terms, that is the problem. If they had stayed out this wouldn’t be happening. Yes, someone else will probably step in and do all the evil you have just refused to do, but that isn’t a reason to instead decide to do it personally. Note that I give them a lot of credit for trying to stop and to have their own red lines about the use of their technology, and to stick to those red lines to the end.
- draw_down 8mo ago
  [dead]
- idiotsecant 8mo ago
  The military is perhaps the biggest possible customer around. They do plenty of things that aren't blowing people up. It's not bad to help with non combat tasks.
  - Chance-Device 8mo ago
    Yeah, but aren’t all of those things in service of “blowing people up”?
    - upboundspiral 8mo ago
      National defense is important, just ask Europe post Ukraine war. People taking a good idea and extending it to do bad does harm twice: in the bad act itself and in making a good thing seem bad. I am strongly against US starting wars and as you say blowing people up. I am also strongly against the US being defenseless in the case of a national emergency.
    - idiotsecant 8mo ago
      Blowing people up is sometimes morally correct. Defending yourself against attack is very nearly always so.
- 8mo ago
parliament32 8mo ago
Is there a link to the actual order anywhere? For us FedRAMP folks, the exact order contents actually matter, rather than a journalistic regurgitation. I was hoping one of the links in the article pointed to a source, but they're all just links back to other WSJ pages.
- SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
  It sounds like they still have not issued any sort of actual order. The "formal label" described in the article is that they sent a communication directly to Anthropic saying they're a supply chain risk.
- 6thbit 8mo ago
  Most corps will take the safer bet of not using them at all to prevent "accidental" miscompliance and more expensive audits. I'd bet if you need fedramp compliance you'll get forced out of their products generically.
6thbit 8mo ago
Would this mean Any systems built with Claude in defense environments may need to be rebuilt or removed?
- zppln 8mo ago
  From what I understand it cannot be used to perform work on contracts where the DoW is on the other side. [1] In practice I would suspect companies with such contracts would play it safe by outright banning the use of Anthtropic products, even if they could technically be used for work on contracts with other parties. [1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-comments-secretary-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-comments-secretary-...
netinstructions 8mo ago
This designation is usually reserved for foreign adversaries/companies, and so this is crazy to apply it to US company over a sudden contract dispute... that was previously agreed upon by all parties. This should make any US company nervous about entering into an agreement with the government. Or any US company that already has a contract with the government. If they one day decide they don't like that contract, they can designate you a supply chain risk. Not 1) rip up the existing contract and cease the agreement or 2) continue (but not renew) the existing contract or 3) renegotiate terms upon renewal but instead a full on ban of doing any business with an entire industry/sector.
- pstuart 8mo ago
  > This should make any US company nervous "Nice little business ya got here -- it'd be shame if something happened to it..."
  - Analemma_ 8mo ago
    Shame you didn’t donate $25 million to Trump, like the company we decided to give the contract to instead did, who will benefit tremendously from you being designated a supply chain risk. Maybe next time you’ll be a little smarter.
    - cozzyd 8mo ago
      Have they even given a bar of gold once?
      - _doctor_love 8mo ago
        I can't recall the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee.
- atoav 8mo ago
  Well. Unsurprisingly fascists will do a fascism – an ideology somewhat defined by merging state and industrial powers. Many economically minded people, many technologists, including in this space, have afforded themselves the luxury of not talking about politics too deeply. As I said some years ago: Ignoring politics has its way of coming back to haunt you. Back then this was an unpopular take.
stared 8mo ago
Should it be officially marked as the date of transition from liberal democracy to illiberal democracy? Such tampering with companies is a smoking gun. Let's wait until there is another decision seizing this (or others') company assets.
- quentindanjou 8mo ago
  I always find it interesting to listen US citizen answer "What would it take for you to not consider your country a democracy?" and admire the wide range of answers and denials.
  - cheesecompiler 8mo ago
    Right, as if _this_ is straw that breaks the camel's back, and not the pile of hay the camel has been carrying for decades.
  - breakpointalpha 8mo ago
    Many proudly and loudly claim the US is a "republic".
    - GaryBluto 8mo ago
      Is it not?
- zem 8mo ago
  secret police kidnapping people off the streets didn't clue you in?!!
  - PoignardAzur 8mo ago
    If you're referring to ICE, that's gross hyperbole, and honestly a little insulting to people who live / have lived in regimes with an actual secret police. The US is still a rights-based state, which means that when they arrest someone (legitimately or not), lawyers and human right advocates can eventually track them down. When a secret police disappears someone, they actually disappear. Families can spend years wondering if their loved one is still alive, or was murdered by organized crime, or ran away, or was secretly taken by the state. The US these days is pretty bad, but it's nowhere near that bad.
alanwreath 8mo ago
Labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk only because they were uninterested in doing business with the US government under the terms requested seems very much a bullying tactic that results in something the west critiques China for: coerced alignment. Anthropic has been given a death sentence.
blacksmith_tb 8mo ago
A bit ironic then that they're actively using Claude in the current war effort[1]. 1: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-claude-ai-iran-war-u-s/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-claude-ai-iran-war-u-...
- 6thbit 8mo ago
  This is also the part i don't get. People flocking over to pay anthropic which _has already been used in a war_ and cancelling existing subs to a provider that has not yet but will? Ethical boundaries seem difficult to draw here. I don't really see people taking the stance of "No longer paying any of them" which would make a bit more sense to me. Anthropic already had layed in bed with pentagon, how did that fit their overall ethical standpoint as they were already being used and before they tried to walk back their terms?
  - blacksmith_tb 8mo ago
    I don't get the impression Anthropic tried to walk anything back, they just balked when they were informed that the DoD wasn't willing to abide by their terms to refrain from using Claude for surveillance or straight up selecting targets to kill. But you're right that means Anthropic's hands are not exactly clean, just less bloody than OpenAI's or xAI's
    - 6thbit 8mo ago
      Is it? They already had signed with gov months ago and have been used by them actively in their Iran attacks. Whereas OpenAI just signed and deployed at this time.
sam0x17 8mo ago
Streisand effect I think this will boost sales
- gritspants 8mo ago
  I hope so. I will never type a single thought of my own or personal detail into an OpenAI product again. I have no doubt at some point OpenAI will be asked by DoD to hand over customer data and they will do so. If I use AI at all for nonprofessional reasons it will be Anthropic/Claude.
  - 6thbit 8mo ago
    US Gov doesn't really need a contract with anthropic to force them to hand over customer data do they? What would prevent that from happening if they are still a US based company?
nineteen999 8mo ago
Wonder how long it will take the American public to designate the US Govt a threat to national security, and using AI to assemble their own autonomous civilian defense robots to protect the public from the government-approved population suppression robots. Right to bare arms and all that etc.
tempacct423 8mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
foxes 8mo ago
> Oh no my favourite ai company did / didn't collaborate How could the regime do such a thing, doesn't law mean anything?!! /s First they came for my neighbour now they came for my llm!!
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
SpacePortKnight 8mo ago
Anthropic can now no longer buy new hardware and probably will be kicked out of all cloud compute. They can not also move to a different jurisdiction as exporting model weights is now considered same as exporting ICBM technology. Wow, companies in China are now more free than Anthropic. It's a death sentence, and a huge win for OpenAI.
- Jtsummers 8mo ago
  > Anthropic can now no longer buy new hardware and probably will be kicked out of all cloud compute. That's beyond the authority of the DOD. What the DOD can do is say that Anthropic's products cannot be used on defense contracts. So Boeing programmers can't use Claude on a defense contract, but they can still use it on a civilian contract. Similarly, AWS or Azure can still be used by Anthropic, but they cannot use Anthropic in their defense work.
- gonzalohm 8mo ago
  Why not? If you have been designated a supply chain risk you may as well become one. They should move everything overseas
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
cermicelli 8mo ago
For what it's worth govts should have the final say over companies they do business with anyone saying it's illegal is insane. Now the separate question is of collusion or bribery. Which might be illegal but Anthropic has to go to court for that.. And in US bribery aka lobbying is legal as well so honestly. Anthropic is just slow on the uptake. No pun intended, but get in bed with snakes and you should be happy if you survive getting bitten.
- cermicelli 8mo ago
  US rich tech folks like Dario only get a spine when there is money on the line. Where was he when US govt was doing awful illegal stuff against non tech companies and other americans... All of this is practically just theater at this point.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- Jtsummers 8mo ago
  > For what it's worth govts should have the final say over companies they do business with That's certainly an opinion, but in the US it's not how it works. Doing business with the government does not give the government total power over the company, that would be absurd.
karteum 8mo ago
Could Anthropic consider to relocate in Europe ? ;)
- 6thbit 8mo ago
  As much as I'd really like to see one of these labs in EU, they are likely way too tied to US capital and supply-chain of semis/services. If they move away and now have to also deal with export restrictions they may make their existence harder.
rodchalski 8mo ago
[dead]

432 points by klausa 8mo ago

cakealert 8mo ago

[flagged]

kelnos 8mo ago
Because it's not a military asset? It's a privately-owned asset.
- cakealert 8mo ago
  > Because it's not a military asset? It's a privately-owned asset. Are you under the impression that the military is submitting Anthropic API calls? Whatever model the military is using is as much of an asset as the F35 they purchased. Depending on their agreements, you could argue it's a rented asset. Doesn't change any calculus.
  - gAI 8mo ago
    status.claude.com shows the uptime for the government cloud service. It's running in-part on an AWS server.
  - monocasa 8mo ago
    And the F35 comes with tons of contract terms in favor of the manufacturer. Like I've heard about how planes have been grounded because although an air base has the parts and mechanics rated to perform the repair on site, the servicing contract only allows it to be performed by the service contractors who needed to be flown in.
    - Jtsummers 8mo ago
      The DOD can't even force companies to hand over data, such as schematics, if it wasn't in the original contract without providing extra payment negotiated with the contractor, and they can't force the contractor to set a particular price. This has happened on numerous systems. One of the biggest I'm aware of was the H-60 where the DOD ended up reverse engineering the early helicopters in order to maintain them, all because the DOD program office forgot to include a data rights clause in the contract (Sikorski didn't forget, they just didn't remind the DOD).
  - BoiledCabbage 8mo ago
    > Depending on their agreements, you could argue it's a rented asset. Doesn't change any calculus. I think your mistakenly thinking of it as an asset. It's not as asset like a house, it's a service. They have a service contract. They have uptime and SLA commitments. That contract has parameters, and changing those parameters means a new contract. A similar service would be signing up a private company to do intelligence gathering and analysis for the DoD in Asia. They find a company that specializes in Asia and sign a contract. They give them work and the contractors fulfill it. Coming back and saying "we want you now to give us analysis for important decisions in South America." The company would reasonably reply "we don't have the skills to do that in South America. Our team knows nothing about South Am, we're no better than someone off the street at that. There is no credibility behind anything we'd say about South America. And on top our contract was foe Asia". If we want to discuss a plan for hiring people for South Am let's discuss it, but that's a new contract." And then the DoD saying they're a supply chain risk makes no sense. Or if you want an even more and hyperbolic example they cant take those data analysis to and say we're sending them ti the front lines of Iran. The company say no, and the DoD replying "you're a supply chain risk". They are not renting people, they are signing for a service of data analysis. Similarly they are not renting hardware they are signing for an LLM/intelligence service.
  - randallsquared 8mo ago
    > Are you under the impression that the military is submitting Anthropic API calls? Yes? I assume that it's not in a government owned and operated datacenter, but likely in AWS (govcloud or whatever) and maintained/serviced by Anthropic SREs like I suppose regular Claude is.
Rudybega 8mo ago
Anthropic and the military had a contract. The military wanted to change the terms of that contract. Anthropic said no, which is their clearly defined contractual right. They got labeled a supply chain risk. How is this anything other than a shakedown? Does contract law mean anything to this administration?
- cakealert 8mo ago
  The other such labeled companies have contracts too.
  - timmmmmmay 8mo ago
    no, the other such labeled companies are foreign owned firms like Huawei that the government never intended to do business with in the first place
  - mediaman 8mo ago
    10 USC 3252 has only been used once, against Acronis AG, a Swiss company with Russian connections. Acronis did not have DOD contracts. Other companies (Huawei) have been deemed risks under different laws, or by Congress, but they also didn't have direct DOD contracts. Do you have any evidence for your assertion? Did you check if it is true before posting?
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
ok_dad 8mo ago
The legal definition of supply chain risk: > “Supply chain risk” means the risk that an adversary may sabotage, maliciously introduce unwanted function, or otherwise subvert the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of a covered system so as to surveil, deny, disrupt, or otherwise degrade the function, use, or operation of such system (see 10 U.S.C. 3252). Naming a US company a "supply chain risk" is basically saying "this company is an adversary of the USA", which is FUCKING INSANE.
- yoyohello13 8mo ago
  They think anyone who isn't a republican is an adversary of the USA.
pmarreck 8mo ago
Congratulations, you are clearly the smartest person on this forum, and I don’t mean that facetiously. The number of naïve comments here is absolutely astounding. It would be like a spouse proposing restrictions and terms of their access to your phone contingent on you marrying them. Assuming guilt until proven innocent
- xpe 8mo ago
  > It would be like a spouse proposing restrictions and terms of their access to your phone contingent on you marrying them. It is easy to cherry pick one metaphor. We owe it to ourselves to think better than that. What happens when you analyze this overall situation in all of its richness from multiple points of view and then seek synthesis? Speaking for myself, I would want to know your (1) probabilistic priors: the Bayesian equivalent of "disclosing your biases"; (2) supporting information; (3) conflicting information: I want to know that you aren't just ignoring it; (4) various theories/models you considered; (5) overall probabilistic take. All in all, I'm uninterested in analysis disconnected from the historical particulars. Few people have the skillset and time to dig in properly. I suggest starting with "A Tale of Three Contracts" by Zvi Mowshowitz [1] In my experience, you would be hard-pressed to find anything around AI of this quality in the usual mainstream publications. [1] https://thezvi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-three-contracts https://thezvi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-three-contracts
- kevinwang 8mo ago
  Even in your analogy, it's appropriate to reject the terms of marriage and not wed this person. But it's unprecedented to also vindictively ruin their life (e.g. by unilaterally putting them in jail)
xpe 8mo ago
> There are game theoretic reasons why a military should never accept any external restrictions on an asset. 1. Last week I made a case for why DoD, if rational, would accept limited use under a consequentialist decision theory frame: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47190039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47190039 2. One what basis is it rational to give the current administration (the leadership) the benefit of the doubt w.r.t. having a sincere drive towards advancing the national security of the United States? The evidence highly points in the other direction: towards corruption, political ends, and narcissistic whims.
mitthrowaway2 8mo ago
Because last time I checked, private companies that voluntarily offer a service to the government on contract terms are free to put whatever restrictions they want into their contract, and the government is free to not sign it if they don't like it? Or is, say, FedEx now a supply chain risk too, if they happened to offer parcel delivery services for the DoD and put in a clause excluding delivery to active war zones?

m_ke 8mo ago

We can all thank the VCs and CEOs who fully embraced and enabled this administration

strange_quark 8mo ago
We're all trying to find the guy who did this!
hypeatei 8mo ago
And 32% of eligible voters that thought Kamala would've been worse.
- m_ke 8mo ago
  Don't blame the voters, they didn't get to pick her and did not run her campaign.
  - hypeatei 8mo ago
    Oh no, I will. They're absolutely culpable.
    - m_ke 8mo ago
      I think the DNC and the media might need to get some of that blame for being empty vessels for corporate interests that allowed this conman to get elected twice
      - osiris970 8mo ago
        Voters knew who trump was and chose him. They deserve all the blame. As a voting adult ur choices have consequences. All voters who voted trump or third party deserve all the consequences

_2d30 8mo ago

Naturally OpenAI also releases their new model on the same day. Makes sense, obviously, but yeesh.

jawns 8mo ago

The consequence is that any company that does business with the U.S. military, and potentially any company that does business with the government in general, must stop using Anthropic's products for that work. Anthropic has vowed to fight this designation in court. Without weighing in on the constitutionality or legality of the move, I think it's obvious that this kind of retaliation power is unmatched by any private business that has a contractual dispute. If a private business doesn't like Anthropic's terms, it can walk away from the deal, but it can't conduct coordinated retaliation with other companies before ending up in antitrust territory or potentially violating the Sherman Act. Now for my editorializing: The fact that Pete Hegseth is willing to apply this type of designation against a U.S. company simply because he doesn't like its terms is pretty chilling. It's all the more scary once you consider which terms he objects to.

mitthrowaway2 8mo ago
Every action has an opposite reaction. The DoD has made itself riskier to do business with, and future contacts will have to price that risk in.
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  FedRAMP and FedRAMP adjacent revenue is non-negotiable for vast swathes of businesses. The designation of "supply chain risk" is viral in nature because no GRC team will dare take such a risk within their supply chain because most customers add BOM requirements in contracts so this will end up falling under those already. There's a lot of backchanneling going on between Emil and Dario because everyone's in the same circles but it's all for naught.
- stefan_ 8mo ago
  The DoD has been rather consistent that they will decide what to do with a product sold to them, not some random vendor. There is nothing extra to "price in".
  - nkohari 8mo ago
    The "extra" is that the government is now attempting to unilaterally renegotiate contracts, and if the contractor disagrees, not only do they terminate the agreement but they restrict how other companies can work with you.

scuff3d 8mo ago

Huh, and I thought conservatives were all about government staying our of the way of the private sector. Go figure...

ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
StOp MaKiNg EvErYtHiNg PolItIcaL
- bdangubic 8mo ago
  In an article that discusses Pentagon doing stupid shit? :)
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    That was without a doubt meant sarcastic.
    - ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
      Of course it was, thank you.
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        It's incredible that this needed to be explained.
  - ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
    As the sibling explained, it was sarcasm. It was satire of brain dead right wingers saying "stop making everything political" when political points apply, but then making things political politcal in stupid situations. Example, someone shoots up a school, people say "if the Republican party hadn't obstructed gun legislation maybe this wouldn't have happened", they respond "StOp MaKiNg EvErYtHiNg PolItIcaL". But if the person is trans suddenly it's political.
tantalor 8mo ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago

Fascism

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

nickysielicki 8mo ago

Does anyone know which law firm is representing anthropic?

grvbck 8mo ago
For now it's in-house counsel Jeffrey Bleich, former special counsel to President Obama. https://www.inc.com/chris-morris/legal-legend-leading-anthropic-battle-with-the-pentagon/91311053 https://www.inc.com/chris-morris/legal-legend-leading-anthro...
tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
[flagged]
- LightBug1 8mo ago
  Well, would you want to given the rotten-KFC-stench of the current admin?
- Tyrubias 8mo ago
  Tainted? Because they refused to change a contract that was already signed to allow for surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous kill bots? I guarantee, if a sane and non-fascist administration ever takes power again Anthropic will be forgiven. Being attacked by this administration is an honor. OpenAI on the other hand…
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]

seydor 8mo ago

A reminder to Anthropic, european residence visas start at $250K

mrtksn 8mo ago

Isn’t it actually quite fair that if you are not compliant with whatever the government wants you to do you will be supplying chain risk? For example from history we know that Schindler from Schindler's List was indeed a supply chain risk. He harbored persecuted people, he took and sabotaged government contracts. He did the moral but anti-government and illegal things. He was corrupt traitor from governments perspective. The current US government already is labeled as fascist by many, the guy who designated Anthropic supply chain risk is allegedly a war criminal. I don’t see why anyone not into these things would not be a supply chain risk. I know that its very unpopular or divisive to say this but Anthropic can be a hero only after all this is over. At this time people in charge do double tap on survivors and take pride for not having conscience, they give speeches about these things.

dralley 8mo ago
Anthropic and the Government both signed a contract. Anthropic is still abiding the terms of that contract. The Government is demanding that they be able to disobey the contract.
- mrtksn 8mo ago
  Implementation details TBH. They want “their boys” to do as said. No respect to agreement or legality as we can see in other dealings. They hold all they cards.
  - stonogo 8mo ago
    It's not an "implementation detail." Either obeying contract law subjects you to being designated a supply-chain risk, or it does not, and that decision has ramifications outside this "implementation."
    - mrtksn 8mo ago
      Irrelevant. The president holds all the cards, he is above the law and you are a supply chain risk if you ask anything else other than “how high” when you are told to jump. Laws or contracts are things in the past. The most a contract can do is define your limits and obligations, not your rights or privileges,

mentalgear 8mo ago

I said it before and I say it again: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent. And to add to this quoting another commentator on the issue: First the Meritocracy goes, then the Freedom goes.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
exceptione 8mo ago
You can download the manual from kremlin.gov, and I am only half-joking here.
bdangubic 8mo ago
That is already started to happen but it cannot happen overnight. Not only is it not easy but finding alternatives is also not easy. Just think of from your own personal perspective, say you have $100m right now invested in US business and wisely you say "I gotta get my shit away from this mess" - where exactly would you park your assets? You will find a way of course but you won't be moving $100m elsewhere overnight
hungryhobbit 8mo ago
Rational investors live in reality. In reality, a great deal of business conducted throughout the world involves graft; companies accept that, and keep doing business. It's not a good thing, AT ALL. There's a huge loss of overall productivity when you have corrupt systems (see Russia), which is why modern governments have worked so hard to lower corruption. But Trump ruining all that isn't going to end business ... it's just going to make everyone pay more for everything.
- watwut 8mo ago
  > which is why modern governments have worked so hard to lower corruption I would argue that they did not. They should have and some were better then others. But, bulk of financial markets, all of predictionmarkets and crypto, startups and sillicon valley, Musk imperium, Thiel, Murdock, all run on corruption. And to large extend, Trump is the endgame of that.

oompydoompy74 8mo ago

Exported all my chats and deleted my ChatGPT account yesterday. The current administration not liking you is the strongest signal I could possibly have to go all in on a particular company.

soupfordummies 8mo ago
Are you able to view your chats through the .html file in the export? Mine are all garbled, like the JSON's not being parsed properly or something.
tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
[flagged]
- mpalmer 8mo ago
  Maybe look up civil disobedience?
- kelnos 8mo ago
  That's not civil disobedience. It's voting with your wallet.
silveira 8mo ago
Thanks, I had deleted the app from all my devices but not deleted the account. I have deleted my account now too.
surgical_fire 8mo ago
Eh, they are all morally indefensible. Anthropic had no problems to do business with the current administration until now. Are we to pretend it was all for happy purposes until now?
- ecshafer 8mo ago
  Yeah how could Anthropic do business with the democratically elected government of the United States?

jmspring 8mo ago

Next up, after some sort of bribe, the administration opens up Qwen models to be used by the Pentagon.

baxtr 8mo ago

I would love to understand in more detail what kind of use cases we’re talking about. Is this about locating the right target for a sortie for example?

hk__2 8mo ago
> I would love to understand in more detail what kind of use cases we’re talking about. The whole point is that the use-case does not matter; either you allow the government to do everything they want, either you don’t.
- pirate787 8mo ago
  either you allow a democratically elected government to do everything they want that is legal, or you insert private corporate decision-making into every government decision which is untenable
  - sodality2 8mo ago
    Is there any evidence that going outside the scope of the agreement would amount to anything more than a contract violation? Are we really to expect that Anthropic general counsel sits at the API gates allowing or blocking requests? More generally, are there any comparable contract requirements in the field of defense, for a company in the same position as Anthropic? I'm curious.
  - _heimdall 8mo ago
    You're missing the huge step that the government asking for "all legal uses" terminology is also who decides what is legal. Congress isn't willing to act as a check on executive power, meaning the contract they demanded simply says "I do what I want."
  - realo 8mo ago
    Sure... So the USA of Trump have just decided to stop themselves and all their military suppliers from using the very best coding tools. I suppose the USA's frenemies will jump on the occasion and use the incredible opportunity offered to them in a silver platter.

wrs 8mo ago

Once again our leadership is "playing government" like a bunch of 12-year-olds, lashing out impulsively without thinking of the consequences. And no doubt once again it'll take a year for this to wind its way through the legal system and be reversed long after the damage is done, as is finally happening with the tariff fiasco.

pinkmuffinere 8mo ago

https://archive.ph/IVDtq https://archive.ph/IVDtq

eth0up 8mo ago

First, I personally predict, for myself, Anthropic will bend soon and this will be history. The last I commented about LLMs I was ad hominem'd with "schizophrenic" and such. That's annoying but doesn't deter either my strange research or concerns, in this case, regarding the direction LLMs are heading. Of 4 frontier models, one is not yet connected to the DOD(or w). While such connections are not immediate evidence, I think it's rational to consider possible consequences of this arrangement. By title, there's a gap, real or perceived between the plebeian and mil version. But the relationship could involve mission creep or additional strings as things progress. We have already a strong trend for these models replacing conventional Internet searches. Not consummate yet, there is a centralizing force occuring, and despite being trained on enormous bodies of data, we know weights and safety rails can affect output, and bearing in mind the many things that could be labeled or masquerade as safety rails, could be formidable biases. I frequently observe corporate friendly results in my model interactions, where clearly, honesty and integrity are secondary to agenda. As I often say this is not emergent, nor does it need be. Meanwhile we see LLMs being integrated into nearly everything, from browsers to social profiling companies (lexis nexis, palantir, etc) to email to local shopping centers and the legal system. 'Open' models cannot compete with the budgets of the big four. Though thank god they exist. But I expect serious regulation attempts soon. My concerns with AI are manifold, and here on hn, affiliated by some, with paranoia or worse. And it seems to me, many of the most knowledgeable and informed underestimate LLMs the most, while the ignorant conflate them to presently unrealistic degrees. But every which way I perceive this technology, I see epic, paradigm smashing, severe implications in every direction. One thing of many that gets little attention is documentation vs reality regarding multiple aspects of AI, e.g. where the training vs privacy boundaries really are if anywhere. As they integrate more and more tightly with common everyday activities, they will learn more and more. A random concern of mine is illustrated by the Xfinity microwave technology which uses a router to visualize or process biological activity interacting with other wifi signals. Standalone, it's sensitive enough to determine animals from adult humans. Take for example the Range-R, a handheld device, sensitive enough to detect breathing through several walls. Well, mix this with AI and we get interesting times. I could go on, or post essays, but I such is not well received in this savage land. The military intervention with AI, aside from being objectively necessary or inevitable in some ways (ways I am not comfortable with), I find it foreboding, or portending. I see very little discussion on the implications, so figured I see if anyone had anything to say other than to call me a schizophrenic and criticize my writing. * *See comment history

Herring 8mo ago

Since the end of WW2, and especially since the end of the Cold War, Democratic administrations have presided over significantly higher job growth than Republican administrations. https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZXZLAMEEVJHZRDDY5LGDFZ3OEQ.png https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.c...

keithnz 8mo ago
this isn't on topic at all
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- teachrdan 8mo ago
  I think the implication is that democratic presidents are less likely to do dumb shit like this, which harms the economy.
  - shimman 8mo ago
    On the contrary, hopefully this gives the next democratic administration ammunition to take down big tech. Might as well classify Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple as supply-chain risks too with this logic. Too bad that Congress has abdicated their responsibility to the executive branch, no reason why Congress couldn't have more control over the Pentagon. The President only has legal authority to command forces, not control an entire institution; but this would require Congress actually doing their job and not justifying more corporate welfare forever.
  - Herring 8mo ago
    A lot of people love watching dumb shit, like watching reality tv. Crucially also they often love doing dumb shit. It's a privilege they don't want to give up, like pretending gravity doesn't apply to you.
    - 8mo ago

germandiago 8mo ago

This is awful. That a disagreement tjat involves politics can make a company ruined is really awful. The civil society should be quite concerned about this kind of attacks.

softwaredoug 8mo ago
It opens the door for Democratic administrations to do the same to vendors for their own political reasons. That’s ultimately why Ted Cruz spoke out about the Kimmel cancelation. It doesn’t take long until those powers are turned against you.
- Analemma_ 8mo ago
  Yeah, now that this door is cracked open, it's now possible to decapitate SpaceX, which is at least as natsec-critical as Anthropic. The owner is a drug addict, has business interests in China, and is a Russian sympathizer (recall all the restrictions on Ukraine using Starlink), which all together is way stronger evidence for SCR designation than anything Anthropic has done. They're quickly going to come to regret opening this can of worms, but what else is new.
  - tw04 8mo ago
    Trump isn’t planning on ever leaving office before his death. His sycophants will just say yes in the hopes of unconditional pardons. They know they’ll never hold a position of power again so they’re grabbing everything they can while they can.
- thinkingtoilet 8mo ago
  I love when a Republican does something awful the response is "but what about if Democrats do that same awful thing to us!" as opposed to discussing and admitting that the Republicans did something awful.
  - softwaredoug 8mo ago
    The only way you convince Republicans it’s awful is by reminding Republicans power can be abused in both directions.

mdni007 8mo ago

[flagged]

zthrowaway 8mo ago
Mark Levin is that you?
mmastrac 8mo ago
I really can't tell if this is snark or not.

martinwright 8mo ago

Part of me wonders if it was a plan to squeeze between Anthropic & big gov contracts

yoyohello13 8mo ago
I'm willing to bet is was a golf course conversation. "Hey why is the gov using Anthorpic over OpenAI, don't you know how much money I've donated?"

tokyobreakfast 8mo ago

[flagged]

neves 8mo ago

Is this the reason Claude models disappeared from AWS cloud in Brazil?

wg0 8mo ago

Has this happened before?

gAI 8mo ago
Not to a US company.
jacquesm 8mo ago
You can ask that question every other hour.

hedayet 8mo ago

So, DoD has done what it said it would. And OpenAI has jumped on the opportunity. I'm curious what'll openai signatories on notdivided.org do now - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47188473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47188473 Remain undivided in spirit while grinding for OpenAI?

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
shimman 8mo ago
They'll do nothing. It's really hard to take the morals of these devs seriously when they're already fine working for, and have a history with, some of the most evil companies in current existence.
- Computer0 8mo ago
  And when you suggest unions and worker organization to them they gloat that the company takes better care of them without it. They don't want to be in the same class as the peasantry.
burkaman 8mo ago
"jumped on the opportunity" is possible, but per https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-whole-thing-was-scam https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-whole-thing-was-scam it's plausible that OpenAI created this situation through straightforward bribery.
- surprisetalk 8mo ago
  > OpenAI exec becomes top Trump donor with $25 million gift > https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/brockman-openai-top-trump-donor-21273419.php https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/brockman-openai-top-trum...
- phba 8mo ago
  Maybe this is the first step towards the Big Beautiful Bailout when the AI bubble inevitably pops.

blueblisters 8mo ago

It might be that this admin does not have the capacity to reason about second or third order effects. But given that what would typically be red lines for previous administrations have been brazenly crossed without consequences, why would they bother?

andrewstuart2 8mo ago
Crossing red lines for previous administrations is clearly a goal at this point.
theshrike79 8mo ago
Nope, they don't have that capacity. It's been shown multiple times in the past year. Shutting down USAID being the clearest one. They just saw "they help brown people in other countries with our money" and shut it down. Fuck all second and third order effects that actually benefited the US.

yoyohello13 8mo ago

Of course. Hegseth said it, there is no way they could back out. Looking 'weak' is the worst possible thing for this admin. They would rather look childish, stupid, and evil, as long as they don't look 'weak'. Especially 'weak' things like 'caring about people'.

neogodless 8mo ago

Previous information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186677 I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk (twitter.com/secwar) 5 days ago, 1083+ comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189441 Anthropic says it will challenge Pentagon supply chain risk designation in court (reuters.com) 5 days ago, 37+ comments

adamtaylor_13 8mo ago

Writing out a thought I had, someone please critique my reasoning here... What if Anthropic just shrugged, dissolved the company and open-sourced all of the Opus weights? Could this harm OpenAI and advance AI in a reasonable way? Look I know it's an insane idea. I'm just curious what the most unhinged response to this might be.

stirlo 8mo ago
There’s plenty of markets outside the pentagon to sell to. Far more likely is they spin up a defence focused subsidiary with slightly different policies if they really want to sell to them.
BoiledCabbage 8mo ago
> Look I know it's an insane idea. I'm just curious what the most unhinged response to this might be. I mean what if all the employees stripped off their clothes and walked through the streets naked while barking, then called up their middle school math teachers and barked live dogs then moved to a commune and stood on their heads. > Writing out a thought I had, someone please critique my reasoning here... I mean to critique your reasoning, it makes sense to also include a criteria of something they might reasonably do. There are an infinite number of unhinged things a group of people could in theory do. But maybe start with something they would actually have an incentive to do. Why would they voluntarily dissolve their company, put themselves out of work, release their crown jewels and get nothing for it? Yes it's unhinged but unless I'm missing something bug, they wouldn't do that because they wouldn't at all want that to happen.
xpe 8mo ago
> I'm just curious what the most unhinged response to this might be. Are you asking how dangerous open-weight models are? You could start with: Ryan Greenblatt on the AI Alignment Forum : "When is it important that open-weight models aren't released?" https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/TeF8Az2EiWenR9APF/when-is-it-important-that-open-weight-models-aren-t-released https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/TeF8Az2EiWenR9APF/when-... From the Centre for Future Generations : "Can open-weight models ever be safe?" https://cfg.eu/can-open-weight-models-ever-be-safe/ https://cfg.eu/can-open-weight-models-ever-be-safe/ From OpenAI authors, far from neutral : "Estimating Worst-Case Frontier Risks of Open-Weight LLMs" https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03153 https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03153

hax0ron3 8mo ago

I am a political moderate who dislikes both the Democrats and Republicans. I think that I have been fair to the Trump administration in the past, including occasionally defending them from some of the less reality-based accusations against them. I canceled my ChatGPT subscription a couple of days ago. In my opinion the Trump administration has become far too much of an "imperial Presidency" in its acts of war and its attempts to bully companies. It is also corrupt on a massive scale. I distrust anyone who thinks "yes, I'd like to work with this administration".

blipvert 8mo ago
Genuine question - was your fair consideration prior to or after J6?
- hax0ron3 8mo ago
  Both.
  - blipvert 8mo ago
    Interesting

infogulch 8mo ago

The US Military's demand that the product they purchase is able to be used for all lawful purposes seems pretty reasonable, and is really the only valid line to draw. Forcing one's own ethics onto the military's use of your product is nonsensical on its face.

watwut 8mo ago
It is completely normal to have ethics based conditions like that. It already eciats - drugs that can not be used in execution or elements that cant be used in arms Goverment is being super unreasonable here. And tyrannical too, companies dont have duty to provide unreliable arms for illegal war.
ssl-3 8mo ago
If I produce and sell widgets in my widget shop, then nobody but me gets to decide how I make those widgets. The government can come into my shop and order sixty thousand widgets built exactly the way they say they want them built, and it may be something that doesn't run afoul of any laws at all. But that doesn't mean that I am required or compelled to build widgets their way -- or at all. I'm free to tell them to fuck off. The government can then find go someone else to build widgets to their specifications (or not; that's very distinctly not my problem).
- basket_horse 8mo ago
  And that’s what’s happening here. The government is telling Anthropic to fuck off and they are finding someone else
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - RoddaWallPro 8mo ago
    Actually, that is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that the govt is saying "Okay, we will not buy your widgets. Also, anyone who _does_ buy your widgets, regardless of what they are doing with them, we the government will not do any business with them." Which is waayyyy beyond just not buying widgets. That is outright retaliation and using your power to attempt to destroy a company.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

softwaredoug 8mo ago

These bullies wilt when everyone stands up in one voice. But when some parties capitulate (OpenAI), it sets a precedent that this behavior is OK. And then it’s not long until you become the target.

hsbauauvhabzb 8mo ago
I’m not sure that’s how billionaires think.

Waterluvian 8mo ago

It was really easy to close out my ChatGPT account and switch to Claude. I was really only there out of inertia. I don’t do anything beyond occasional free tier stuff like rubber ducking but so far Claude is so much better.

jdndbdjsj 8mo ago
I prefer the claude code CLI interface for everything anyway. It is actually more convenient. Memory is local files, type one word to use rather than navigate.
alanwreath 8mo ago
But for how long? If Claude is a supply chain risk. That means anyone hosting him would also be a supply chain risk. Ergo AWS/Azure/GCP - nobody will host them because it’s Anthropic or the lucrative government contracts. Hegseth/Trump didn’t just say “you’ll never do business with the US” - it’s that they will never do business IN the US. Hopefully that means they’ll be able to take up shop elsewhere in the world.
PoignardAzur 8mo ago
I had already been trying Le Chat for months, for similar reasons. So far it's been slart enough for what I need, so closing my ChatGPT subscription was a really easy decision to make.

eikenberry 8mo ago

Could this be the chain of events that finally pops the AI bubble? If OpenAI's reputation hit slows growth enough to scare off investors and Anthropic's growth stalls due to this government attack...

scottyah 8mo ago
I think it's a good chance tbh. It would take the S&P down with it too
- arppacket 8mo ago
  Of course it's going to be this government that goes and pokes the bubble that's propping up the economy, despite all the government's other shenanigans.

readytion 8mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

6thbit 8mo ago

Does this mean nobody on a large company selling to government can use any Anthropic tool or model? So that’s most of sp500 and their providers?

xvector 8mo ago
Only for work directly on government contracts, 99% of work is unaffected

cush 8mo ago

Is Claude Code's outputted code also part of the supply chain risk?

Chance-Device 8mo ago

Anthropic should never have gotten into bed with the military or intelligence services to begin with. They wanted to make a deal with the devil and dictate the terms, that is the problem. If they had stayed out this wouldn’t be happening. Yes, someone else will probably step in and do all the evil you have just refused to do, but that isn’t a reason to instead decide to do it personally. Note that I give them a lot of credit for trying to stop and to have their own red lines about the use of their technology, and to stick to those red lines to the end.

draw_down 8mo ago
[dead]
idiotsecant 8mo ago
The military is perhaps the biggest possible customer around. They do plenty of things that aren't blowing people up. It's not bad to help with non combat tasks.
- Chance-Device 8mo ago
  Yeah, but aren’t all of those things in service of “blowing people up”?
  - upboundspiral 8mo ago
    National defense is important, just ask Europe post Ukraine war. People taking a good idea and extending it to do bad does harm twice: in the bad act itself and in making a good thing seem bad. I am strongly against US starting wars and as you say blowing people up. I am also strongly against the US being defenseless in the case of a national emergency.
  - idiotsecant 8mo ago
    Blowing people up is sometimes morally correct. Defending yourself against attack is very nearly always so.
8mo ago

parliament32 8mo ago

Is there a link to the actual order anywhere? For us FedRAMP folks, the exact order contents actually matter, rather than a journalistic regurgitation. I was hoping one of the links in the article pointed to a source, but they're all just links back to other WSJ pages.

SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
It sounds like they still have not issued any sort of actual order. The "formal label" described in the article is that they sent a communication directly to Anthropic saying they're a supply chain risk.
6thbit 8mo ago
Most corps will take the safer bet of not using them at all to prevent "accidental" miscompliance and more expensive audits. I'd bet if you need fedramp compliance you'll get forced out of their products generically.

6thbit 8mo ago

Would this mean Any systems built with Claude in defense environments may need to be rebuilt or removed?

zppln 8mo ago
From what I understand it cannot be used to perform work on contracts where the DoW is on the other side. [1] In practice I would suspect companies with such contracts would play it safe by outright banning the use of Anthtropic products, even if they could technically be used for work on contracts with other parties. [1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-comments-secretary-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-comments-secretary-...

netinstructions 8mo ago

This designation is usually reserved for foreign adversaries/companies, and so this is crazy to apply it to US company over a sudden contract dispute... that was previously agreed upon by all parties. This should make any US company nervous about entering into an agreement with the government. Or any US company that already has a contract with the government. If they one day decide they don't like that contract, they can designate you a supply chain risk. Not 1) rip up the existing contract and cease the agreement or 2) continue (but not renew) the existing contract or 3) renegotiate terms upon renewal but instead a full on ban of doing any business with an entire industry/sector.

pstuart 8mo ago
> This should make any US company nervous "Nice little business ya got here -- it'd be shame if something happened to it..."
- Analemma_ 8mo ago
  Shame you didn’t donate $25 million to Trump, like the company we decided to give the contract to instead did, who will benefit tremendously from you being designated a supply chain risk. Maybe next time you’ll be a little smarter.
  - cozzyd 8mo ago
    Have they even given a bar of gold once?
    - _doctor_love 8mo ago
      I can't recall the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee.
atoav 8mo ago
Well. Unsurprisingly fascists will do a fascism – an ideology somewhat defined by merging state and industrial powers. Many economically minded people, many technologists, including in this space, have afforded themselves the luxury of not talking about politics too deeply. As I said some years ago: Ignoring politics has its way of coming back to haunt you. Back then this was an unpopular take.

stared 8mo ago

Should it be officially marked as the date of transition from liberal democracy to illiberal democracy? Such tampering with companies is a smoking gun. Let's wait until there is another decision seizing this (or others') company assets.

quentindanjou 8mo ago
I always find it interesting to listen US citizen answer "What would it take for you to not consider your country a democracy?" and admire the wide range of answers and denials.
- cheesecompiler 8mo ago
  Right, as if _this_ is straw that breaks the camel's back, and not the pile of hay the camel has been carrying for decades.
- breakpointalpha 8mo ago
  Many proudly and loudly claim the US is a "republic".
  - GaryBluto 8mo ago
    Is it not?
zem 8mo ago
secret police kidnapping people off the streets didn't clue you in?!!
- PoignardAzur 8mo ago
  If you're referring to ICE, that's gross hyperbole, and honestly a little insulting to people who live / have lived in regimes with an actual secret police. The US is still a rights-based state, which means that when they arrest someone (legitimately or not), lawyers and human right advocates can eventually track them down. When a secret police disappears someone, they actually disappear. Families can spend years wondering if their loved one is still alive, or was murdered by organized crime, or ran away, or was secretly taken by the state. The US these days is pretty bad, but it's nowhere near that bad.

alanwreath 8mo ago

Labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk only because they were uninterested in doing business with the US government under the terms requested seems very much a bullying tactic that results in something the west critiques China for: coerced alignment. Anthropic has been given a death sentence.

blacksmith_tb 8mo ago

A bit ironic then that they're actively using Claude in the current war effort[1]. 1: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-claude-ai-iran-war-u-s/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-claude-ai-iran-war-u-...

6thbit 8mo ago
This is also the part i don't get. People flocking over to pay anthropic which _has already been used in a war_ and cancelling existing subs to a provider that has not yet but will? Ethical boundaries seem difficult to draw here. I don't really see people taking the stance of "No longer paying any of them" which would make a bit more sense to me. Anthropic already had layed in bed with pentagon, how did that fit their overall ethical standpoint as they were already being used and before they tried to walk back their terms?
- blacksmith_tb 8mo ago
  I don't get the impression Anthropic tried to walk anything back, they just balked when they were informed that the DoD wasn't willing to abide by their terms to refrain from using Claude for surveillance or straight up selecting targets to kill. But you're right that means Anthropic's hands are not exactly clean, just less bloody than OpenAI's or xAI's
  - 6thbit 8mo ago
    Is it? They already had signed with gov months ago and have been used by them actively in their Iran attacks. Whereas OpenAI just signed and deployed at this time.

sam0x17 8mo ago

Streisand effect I think this will boost sales

gritspants 8mo ago
I hope so. I will never type a single thought of my own or personal detail into an OpenAI product again. I have no doubt at some point OpenAI will be asked by DoD to hand over customer data and they will do so. If I use AI at all for nonprofessional reasons it will be Anthropic/Claude.
- 6thbit 8mo ago
  US Gov doesn't really need a contract with anthropic to force them to hand over customer data do they? What would prevent that from happening if they are still a US based company?

nineteen999 8mo ago

Wonder how long it will take the American public to designate the US Govt a threat to national security, and using AI to assemble their own autonomous civilian defense robots to protect the public from the government-approved population suppression robots. Right to bare arms and all that etc.

tempacct423 8mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

foxes 8mo ago

> Oh no my favourite ai company did / didn't collaborate How could the regime do such a thing, doesn't law mean anything?!! /s First they came for my neighbour now they came for my llm!!

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

SpacePortKnight 8mo ago

Anthropic can now no longer buy new hardware and probably will be kicked out of all cloud compute. They can not also move to a different jurisdiction as exporting model weights is now considered same as exporting ICBM technology. Wow, companies in China are now more free than Anthropic. It's a death sentence, and a huge win for OpenAI.

Jtsummers 8mo ago
> Anthropic can now no longer buy new hardware and probably will be kicked out of all cloud compute. That's beyond the authority of the DOD. What the DOD can do is say that Anthropic's products cannot be used on defense contracts. So Boeing programmers can't use Claude on a defense contract, but they can still use it on a civilian contract. Similarly, AWS or Azure can still be used by Anthropic, but they cannot use Anthropic in their defense work.
gonzalohm 8mo ago
Why not? If you have been designated a supply chain risk you may as well become one. They should move everything overseas

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

cermicelli 8mo ago

For what it's worth govts should have the final say over companies they do business with anyone saying it's illegal is insane. Now the separate question is of collusion or bribery. Which might be illegal but Anthropic has to go to court for that.. And in US bribery aka lobbying is legal as well so honestly. Anthropic is just slow on the uptake. No pun intended, but get in bed with snakes and you should be happy if you survive getting bitten.

cermicelli 8mo ago
US rich tech folks like Dario only get a spine when there is money on the line. Where was he when US govt was doing awful illegal stuff against non tech companies and other americans... All of this is practically just theater at this point.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
Jtsummers 8mo ago
> For what it's worth govts should have the final say over companies they do business with That's certainly an opinion, but in the US it's not how it works. Doing business with the government does not give the government total power over the company, that would be absurd.

karteum 8mo ago

Could Anthropic consider to relocate in Europe ? ;)

6thbit 8mo ago
As much as I'd really like to see one of these labs in EU, they are likely way too tied to US capital and supply-chain of semis/services. If they move away and now have to also deal with export restrictions they may make their existence harder.

rodchalski 8mo ago

[dead]