Comment by JumpCrisscross
2 days ago
> omnipresent attitude of "if we don't do it, someone else will" is really tough to resist when it comes to AI, as if the outcome is a foregone conclusion
It requires collective action. The President taking bribes from Qatar sends a clear message that such action won't be coördinated. In the absence of customer pressure, the choice is to play the game or not.
Qatars native population is 1/5th of Manhattan, but has survived the 2017 blockade from the rest of the (much larger and richer) Gulf States, has the largest US mil base, pisses Israel off with Al-Jazeera, wangled hosting the world cup, gets involved in every peace negotiation, Gaza rebuild etc etc. In comparison on the complexity scale, what Anthropic and its customer do are pee wee league bs.
The magic of money. It's a testament that with enough money, evil can be allowed to exist and spread.