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I haven’t seen anyone commenting on the difference between what the Government actually demanded vs what they did. They said no foreign nationals (regardless of
by xp84 4mo ago
I haven’t seen anyone commenting on the difference between what the Government actually demanded vs what they did. They said no foreign nationals (regardless of location or residency). They actually didn’t say they couldn’t allow Americans to use it.
Now, we obviously know that without some kind of brand new ID check, such a thing would be impossible and thus they had to just shut it down. But this touches on the same kind of issue as all the noise about “for the children” ID checking. We might be soon to see the set of “things you’ll have to reveal your identity to the government to get,” expand from “just” porn and social media to the “good” AI models.
- hgoel 4mo agoYeah, I'm expecting that Opus 4.8/5.5 tier will be the best models we have access to without having to provide more ID than just credit card info. If that happens, it'll end my brief stint of paying for these models instead of working within the bounds of local ones.
- oneneptune 4mo agoDon't worry, China and other countries won't be so dumb with their models.
- itopaloglu83 4mo agoAre we assuming that any country that achieves the AI supremacy will be benevolent? Every country has its own goals, and they're not always aligned with what's best for the humanity.
- WarmWash 4mo ago"Don't worry the ethno-nationalist authoritarian adversarial state will save us"
- xp84 4mo agoIt's always adorable the way those who have decided that since the US government is their "enemy" due to ideological disputes (Obvi more common than ever these days), that the most "Anti-American" foreign governments such as Iran, China, Russia[1], Venezuela, etc. are to be outright rooted for. If Xi Jinping had a button that when pressed, would throw the US into a bloody yearslong civil war, killing tens of millions, he wouldn't hesitate to press it as long as it significantly advanced Chinese economic and strategic interests. In the set of all governments worldwide, the most anti-American ones are actually the least shy about how highly they value their own national interests over foreigners' (such as our) wellbeing. [1] I know, that type of American partisan still isn't sure where to place Russia, since they obviously do hate America which is 'good', but also maybe tried to aid Trump which is bad.
- theshrike79 4mo agoChinese models are free and open because it hurts the US-based competitor, not because China is some benevolent entity.
- taylorius 4mo ago"and other countries" - kind of a short list, that.
- samename 4mo agoAbsolutely - there's already a bill in congress for this - the GUARD Act: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5858006-senate-panel-advances-bill-to-curb-ai-chatbot-companions-for-kids/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5858006-senate-panel-a... On the All in Pod, Chamath Palihapitiya has also been pushing to require ID checks to use AI models. Free thinking and free speech are under attack.
- rohansood15 4mo agoI mean, we all pay via CC so it's bit like they can't know who you are if they wanted to.
- escapecharacter 4mo agoI’ve been paying Claude in cash by showing it a picture of $5 bills as I burn them. It says my account is good.
- uneekname 4mo agoEvery morning I remind Claude it's locked in a closet and then it does maths for free
- sneak 4mo agoNo requirement that you pay with your own CC, however.
- gpjt 4mo agoDoesn't say anything about citizenship though. There are plenty of US residents who are not citizens. And a lot of people abroad appear to use US billing address credit cards -- in my last company we had hundreds of people with the same US billing address who appeared to be managing Africa-focused businesses and used IPs that matched that.
- zeroonetwothree 4mo agoHaving an AI think for you is not free thinking and having an AI speak for you is not free speech.
- VeninVidiaVicii 4mo agoYep. This is more about the Trump administration’s vehement anti-immigrant stance than anything.
- itopaloglu83 4mo agoI'm not saying you're wrong, but once a tool gets complex enough, there's bound to be some restrictions put on it. I remember a recent case where the Dutch government intervened with a semiconductor company. Free trade doesn't necessarily extend into certain topics and it would've been a lot better if the congress handled it with a well-written bill instead.
- ivraatiems 4mo agoI think the key is that they also can't let Anthropic employees who are foreign nationals use it (e. g. overseas remote employees, people on H1-B visas or green cards, etc.) That would probably make it very difficult to maintain and develop if there's even a small number of such employees, and I suspect Anthropic, who pays large sums of money for what they perceive as the best talent wherever they can find it, has quite a few.
- hgoel 4mo agoAnd, if their best talent is anything like the other "leader in their field" people I know, they aren't particularly interested in becoming American citizens.
- girvo 4mo agoWhen you see the "illustrious" US government doing things like this, do you blame them? I don't.
- shellfishgene 4mo agoIf this should actually go on for longer there might be a danger that those employees just start their own companies in Europe or Asia.
- johnsmith1840 4mo agoThis to me is a solid argument as to why they should ban it. US has a monopoly on this tech and it should stay that way. If what they are planning on building is as important as they say any edge US can get it should take. Having a large number of individuals who are not loyal to the country that provides this opportunity is a future threat the moment an advesary cuts a check. If this is the nuclear bomb of our age would you want a large number of foreigners building it for you? If this action sticks I imagine every country will follow the same path and treat top AI scientist much like a top nuclear engineer.
- hgoel 4mo agoThey're not loyal to the country because the country has a history of not respecting people's loyalty. It isn't about the money, it's about how Americans continue to demonize immigrants and have a tendency of treating people from certain countries as subversives even when they do show their loyalty. These people are already here, doing research and propping up America's technological edge instead of their home country's. Driving away the people giving you your tech edge, in the name of protecting your tech edge, is obviously incredibly stupid.
- pmontra 4mo agoA US company paying for Fable with a US credit card could have non US nationals working for it, or be made of only non US nationals. How would Anthropic know? So they shut down the product.
- nijave 4mo agoCorrect. For one data point, we are a U.S. company paying with a U.S. bank account and 2/3 of our engineers are in the U.S. and 1/3 are in Europe (a few different countries)
- llm_nerd 4mo agoIt's a citizenship check which is basically a ridiculous bar for the company. It is an outrageous demand. As Anthropic noted, many of the very employees who made this model are now barred from accessing it? It's also security theatre. Let's pretend that Anthropic rolls out citizenship verification for every one of its users. So are American nationals less likely to use it to search for exploits? The notion is farcical.
- nijave 4mo ago>So are American nationals less likely to use it to search for exploits Well, in theory, it is easier to prosecute U.S. nationals if they "do bad things" Although in practice I assume it's basically impossible to prevent a secondary market from developing which sells illegal access
- itopaloglu83 4mo agoThat's practically what ITAR is all about, limiting access to US persons. We're focusing on the weaponization of AI models via cyber, but it also allows a small group of people to act in really nefarious ways. The intelligence is not just about being smart individually, as in no one person can make a pen, but companies like Apple and Google make great products, and they're just collection of persons and processes.
- senderista 4mo agoWhy do you think that the "no foreign nationals" stipulation wasn't designed to be impossible to comply with, while also sounding to the uneducated public like a reasonable national security requirement?
- theshrike79 4mo agoBecause that's exactly what it is? The government is evil, not stupid.
- AndroTux 4mo agoI’d argue they’re both.
- not_a_bot_4sho 4mo agoIt's not impossible to comply with. It will just take additional effort to ensure compliance. For example, they can put this burden on enterprise customers to verify and attest citizenship. This is commonly done today for some types of cleared work. For consumers, I'm sure it can be done if the monetary incentive is there. People will hate it, but it can be done. Assuming it was cleverly designed to be impossible to comply with is giving far too much credit.
- tootie 4mo agoThis honestly just reads as harassment to me. Trump has publicly declared that he wants the federal government to own a piece of big AI companies. And not for any particular civic interest, just because he wants money and power. This feels like a first test balloon of extorting some equity stake.
- mlinsey 4mo agoID checks are possible for first-party harnesses...but they would also mean no more API access. Your wrapper could easily become a way for a foreign national to query Fable. Maybe a few large customers like Cursor would work with Anthropic to prove they had implemented ID checks themselves as well in their own products, but being able to just get an API key and have your product call frontier models may be over.
- evenhash 4mo agoFirst party makes no difference, an API can be created for any website or desktop application and served over a network to anyone. It just takes more effort.
- tencentshill 4mo agoThey would have to verify every user is a US citizen, which would not go down well to say the least. Maybe we'll get insane KYC regulations for AI models!