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Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
- cyanydeez 2mo ago"Will you lie to get this job?" Sounds like theyre actively hiring people to train the worst kind of AI
- v9v 2mo agoIs it that inconceivable to think that there are people who would be ok with stopping what they're doing when they realize it's harmful?
- axus 2mo agoThe question won't distinguish between both types of people, except for the bad liars.
- NitpickLawyer 2mo agoI think what's inconceivable is that anyone thinks that these kinds of questions really work. The intersection of high-skilled people that can work there with low-awareness people that can't navigate these questions in a "politically correct" (for lack of a better term) way must be near 0. "Oh, of course I wouldn't mind stopping if we decide that something is too dangerous to pursue. I think the mere fact that we'd get close to knowing how to do it would satisfy my curiosity. Plus, if we'd be close to it, I'd probably take some time to spend with my loved ones, as the competition would likely be close as well." It's not hard to see these kinds of questions as more than kabuki theatre. I'd put them in the same vein as those "do you intend to perform any terrorists acts while in our country" questions you get while travelling.
- notnullorvoid 2mo agoNo that is not inconceivable. What is inconceivable is believing that group of individuals is not a small minority, and the question will filter everyone else out.
- cyanydeez 2mo agoWe've known about global warming for 40 years. Please point to the industry, billionaire and other "people" who are stopping atm?
- snapcaster 2mo agoI hate these types of questions because they're not just selecting for people dedicated to the mission, they're also selecting for people who are convincing liars
- brookst 2mo agoWhat’s the alternative? Selecting people without caring at all about their character?
- kypro 2mo agoI agree with the parent commenter – it's too on the nose. If you were concerned about someone's character then you need to ask questions which really help you to understand who the person is – not questions which are easy to game by lying. I'd argue asking something like someone's opinion on veganism is a better question because it might help you understand how the person thinks about the types of harms Anthropic are concerned about without being such an easy thing to lie about. Obviously they could say "yeah, I think veganism is good", but someone who actually inhabited that view or was just conflicted about balancing meat consumption and the suffering of animals would probably answer with a lot more nuance that helps you understand how that person thinks about similar kinds of ethical concerns.
- brookst 2mo agoFair, but I disagree. This person is interviewing at Anthropic. If they’ve done a decent job of prep work, they know something about the business, the challenges, possible adjacencies, etc. Springing “hey what if our core business goes to zero, what then” seems qualitatively different from “what do you think of veganism” as far as learning what someone’s motives are and what their understanding of the core business is. If I were the interviewer asking that, I would score “oh that’s fine I don’t care about money” exactly the same as “wow I’d be out of here so fast”: total failure. I think HN folks are imagining the question, imagining the responses, and imagining the interviewers’ criteria. Which, sure, easy to decide it’s a terrible question on that basis.
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- dgellow 2mo ago> One applicant — who spoke to Axios on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting future job opportunities — recalled being asked how they would feel if the company someday abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons, and that decision sent the stock to zero. Is that a scoop? I thought that was a well known thing with Anthropic interview process. They were very transparent about it beforehand from what I remember. On HN I’ve said things very critical of the company but that’s really not one of them, overall they had a pretty good (but intense and time consuming) interview process. I don’t understand the value of that article
- hresvelgr 2mo agoI wasn't aware this was known information, but had I not, I would have assumed this was some 4D PR manoeuvre.
- conception 2mo agoIt’s becoming trendy to hate on Anthropic these days but their AI security record speaks for itself for years. Every AI safety benchmark/paper I’ve seen since sonnet became viable placed them far ahead of all other providers - marketing ploy or not (ala Apple “privacy” focus) the company has always had as part of their DNA thus far.
- 15155 2mo agoThis paternalistic "safety" "DNA" is ultimately just marketing and a market capture strategy. 1) Propagandize the "dangers" of AI, stage a few incidents, talk up the risks ("it bypassed our most stringent checks! it's so smart!") 2) Build some thin veneer of "safety" and industry "self-policing." 3) Lobby for AI safety "regulation" - which you've conveniently already got an answer to! Be sure to make the regulations expensive, onerous, and impossible for foreign organizations to comply with. 4) Profit.
- dgellow 2mo agoI don’t think so, I think Amodei and the early employees do believe what they say. It’s still worth criticizing but I don’t think it’s as simple as „just marketing“. But with the company growing and their insane valuation it’s clear it’s morphing into something else
- Der_Einzige 2mo agoAdmit it HN, you have sour grapes for not having a job at Anthropic/OpenAI.
- lombak 2mo agoI have no clue how to get my resume past their Claude ATS so it's kind of moot.
- bot403 2mo agoThe decision to hire me is load-bearing and genuinely yours.
- ofjcihen 2mo agoI was curious until I knew someone who worked for them. I can tell you that you couldn’t pay me enough now.
- notnullorvoid 2mo agoYes I want so badly to work at Antropic. - 50% or more of my compensation locked up with what I believe has a less than 5% chance of keeping significant value - Work with engineers who believe there job now is to vibe out a code editor, and have no idea how to fix it's many issues - Work for a man who lives to fear monger and fain altruism No... No I think I'd rather not actually.
- rvz 2mo agoThe candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company. If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
- Arubis 2mo agoThis is good advice. And if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about EA, imagine for yourself the inner dialogue of someone struggling with the tension between wanting to get really, really rich at any cost, and also really, really wanting other people to cherish them as a heroic-level Good Person, and also (this part is crucial) not have to sully their hands doing any actual hands-on good directly. The ideal runs close to the output of Bill Gates’ PR machine.
- the_sleaze_ 2mo agoWhy are you so anti-anthropic? Hundreds of posts on hacker news decrying anthropic.
- Traster 2mo agoThis is such a good example of a straight forward question that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose. What do we want? Highly ethical people that are mission focused and willing to give up on economic upside for the mission. What are we going to get? Sociopaths who are perfectly happy lying to your face about their intentions, or sycophants who are going to tell you what you want to hear. Do you know who has the best answer to a moral quandry they've had to navigate during their career? Liars! That's a really difficult question to answer if you're honest, it's a really easy question to answer if you're dishonest. If you really want to pursue this strategy rather than setting up bullshit interview questions you could do something much more straight forward. Agree some standard of living that's acceptable for your employees - let's say 250k in the bay area. Give them that as cash comp, and everything else goes into a "fund" which gets paid out when specific milestones are achieved, as judged by some panel. Cure cancer? You all get 10% of your deferred comp. If you want your employees to be prioritizing things other than stock price you can literally just encode that into your compensation strategy if you like! Obviously no one would do that, because they don't actually want to give up the comp.
- DiscourseFan 2mo agoAlso that would open you up to lawsuits galore, since “curing cancer” is not easily definable, but share price is.
- Traster 2mo agoIt's not difficult to define what curing cancer is, we've got tonnes of measures we can define. Let's define curing breast cancer - we have cured breast cancer if the 5 year survival rate is above 99% for all SEER stages, or less than 1 in 1000 women get diagnosed with TNM stage 1 or above. It's not that hard, it's just that deep down, they don't want to be judged on that basis. (Details of the definition of these terms: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/understanding-a-breast-cancer-diagnosis/stages-of-breast-cancer.html https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/understand...)
- DiscourseFan 2mo ago
- neilv 2mo agoOr it could be posturing. Or it could be compensation negotiation. How does the actual Anthropic internal culture compare to that of OpenAI?
- greatgib 2mo agoThe worst is that I don't believe a single second that Amodei and his crew are not greed motivated in the end. Otherwise his company would be a lot different, more open, more open source, more available to help good cause without benefit. What I see is more the god syndrome of persons that have are in power and have an edge. He can make the conditions so it is important for him to appear as a "divine leader", that is capable to "inspire others" with whatever is the right thing that it decides. I'm quite sure that he will not tolerate debate still. But obviously he will not see himself like that, but will be persuaded that he is a world changer and saving the world.
- philipallstar 2mo agoPresumably you're also greed motivated, because you don't work without benefit.
- 15155 2mo agoThe difference is that most people don't make "Look at how altruistic we are! We care™" a key component of their marketing pitch.
- owenmarshall 2mo agoEarning a livelihood under the constraints of capitalism is hardly the same as hoarding wealth.
- philipallstar 2mo ago> under the constraints of capitalism What does this mean? Was life better in soviet Russia under Communism, or as a serf in feudal England? > hoarding wealth The claim was that they were motivated by greed because they weren't doing things for zero benefit. My challenge was that it's normal to do things for pay and it shouldn't be evidence of being motivated by greed.
- danaris 2mo agoIt means we live in a world (especially in the US) where if you aren't earning money, you die within months. Unless you are one of the tiny fraction of people who have enough wealth to live without an earned income—like the heads of all the LLM companies are. Anyone who has enough wealth to maintain roughly their current standard of living for the rest of their life, and still works in a job with a 6+ figure compensation, is doing it out of greed.
- HelloUsername 2mo ago"Damn kids today, working for their money, not mine!" Since Dario believes in the mission, he should give away all his stock and work for a regular employee salary
- dude250711 2mo agoBut what if someone else ends up making the world a better place better than they do?
- philipallstar 2mo agoI don't understand the problem with this question. I could barely discern the question in the article.
- FL410 2mo agoBased on Opus 5, I can only conclude they've activated their plan to drive the stock price to 0
- _fat_santa 2mo agoTBH I find it very out of touch to ask that kind of a question. Among regular people, everyone works for money. I consider myself a "mission" driven person but that "mission" is 4th of 5th on the list of reasons to join a company. Reason number 1 has always and will always be getting money in the door to support my family.
- realistrational 2mo agoWhy not ask the same question your wife asked Epstien? Oh they do?