Comment by latexr
2 days ago
> “We felt that it wouldn't actually help anyone for us to stop training AI models,”
How magnanimous! They are only thinking of others, you see. They are rejecting their safety pledge for you.
> “We didn't really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.”
Oops, said the quiet part out loud that it’s all about money. “I mean, if all of our competitors are kicking puppies in the face, it doesn’t make sense for us to not do it too. Maybe we’ll also kick kittens while we’re at it”.
For all of you who thought Anthropic were “the good guys”, I hope this serves as a wake up call that they were always all the same. None of them care about you, they only care about winning.
Indeed, Anthropic can’t afford to be the ones that impose any kind of sense in the market - that’s supposed to be the job of the government by creating policy, regulations and installing watchdogs to monitor things.
But lucky for the AI companies, most of them are based in place that only has a government on paper and everyone forgot where that paper is.
I believe they could “afford” it, given their staggering valuation. And, by being the ones with sense, they might even attract the kind of customer that wants to do business with companies with principles! The audacity, eh?
> that’s supposed to be the job of the government by creating policy, regulations and installing watchdogs to monitor things
But that government cannot trust the other government on the other side of the world to implement the same restrictions, so we find ourselves in this Nash equilibrium.
The government is why they are dropping their pledge.
https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-hegseth-ai-pentagon-mil...
That's because their government is asking for things that shouldn't be asked - again, no regulation, no oversight.
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No, their Responsible Scaling Policy and their government contract are not related. The RSP governs how Anthropic itself behaves w/r/t developing, testing, and releasing new models. The contract was signed with stipulations around how the government can use existing models (No mass surveillance, no military targeting without a human in the loop) which Hegseth wants removed in a standoff that hasn't yet resolved.
they only care about winning
To be fair, this is true in nearly all industries and for nearly all companies. Almost everyone is chasing money and monopoly. Not that it makes it right, just pointing out it isn’t unique or even interesting about the AI companies
Of course, but Anthropic is particularly insufferable in this respect.
Since it is all about money, I just did vote with my wallet and cancelled the Max subscription
If you're a U.S. citizen, tax dollars from you and others will backstop any cancelled subscriptions, I guess good on you for not trying to pay them twice, though you get zero benefit with this approach.
You've succinctly identified and communicated a real problem. In your opinion, what is the best approach, if any, to attempt to address it?
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> Oops, said the quiet part out loud that it’s all about money. “I mean, if all of our competitors are kicking puppies in the face, it doesn’t make sense for us to not do it too. Maybe we’ll also kick kittens while we’re at it”.
I mean, yes, that is actually how world works. That is why we need safety, environmental and other anti-fraud regulations. Because without them, competition makes it so that every successful company will fraud, hurt and harm. Those who wont will be taken over by those who do.
Yes, this. It's unfortunate that anthropic dropped this and it's also exactly how the system is supposed to work. Companies don't regulate themselves, the government regulates the companies.
Now, you may notice that the government is also choosing not to regulate these companies...which is another matter altogether.
It's so much worse than that. The government actively encourages a lack of business ethics. Heck, it started the term with a crypto rug pull. Money continues to funnel upward to all the worst players, and watchdogs are being targeted and destroyed. Even if you get new people in power, you're going to find the upper echelons completely full of outlandishly wealthy, morally bankrupt individuals that are very politically active. And now they have access to all of our communications and an AI to sift through it looking for dissent (or to spark its own). I guess this is the end game of "move fast and break things." The situation was never good, but it continues to get worse at an alarming rate.
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There is plenty of precedent that companies are expected to regulate themselves. If you are in the US and perform an engineering role without a license or without working under someone with a license, it’s because of an “industrial exemption.” The premise is that companies have enough standards and processes in place to mitigate that risk.
However, there is also plenty of evidence that this setup may no longer work. It seems like the norm has shifted, where companies no longer think it’s their duty to manage risk, only to chase $$$. When coupled with anti-government rhetoric, it effectively socializes the risk to the public but not the profits.
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> anthropic dropped this and it's also exactly how the system is supposed to work. Companies don't regulate themselves, the government regulates the companies.
In this case, it's exactly how it's NOT supposed to work because there's no government regulation concerning the issue. It would be bad looks to have regulation that mandates LESS safety thus the issue was forced on commercial grounds.
I called it yesterday, there was never any doubt in my mind how this would end, and it did in less than 24 hours:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47144609
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> I mean, yes, that is actually how world works.
And soon enough, it won’t work at all because of it.
> Those who wont will be taken over by those who do.
And if you compromise on your core values because of money, they weren’t core values to begin with¹. “I want to be ethical but if I am I won’t get to be a billionaire” isn’t an excuse. We shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders at what we see as wrong because “everybody does it” or “that’s just business” or “that’s life”. Complacency and apologists are how a bad system remains bad.
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
¹ I’m willing to give leeway to individuals. You can believe stealing is wrong but if you’re desperate and steal a loaf of bread to feed your kid, there’s nuance. A VC-backed company is something entirely different.
Anthropic posits itself as a public benefit corp
[flagged]
Was there actually a case of a model saying "America's founding father were black women", or is that just Elon fingering your amygdala with a ridiculous hypothetical that exists nowhere other than Elon's mind in order to justify Elon's personal bias tweaks when he doesn't like the wisdom-of-the-crowds answer his tools initially give?
There were well-publicized cases of Gemini producing more diverse founding fathers images, female popes, etc.
Also, snarky tone is against the HN guidelines.
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The most important part of AI safety is AI alignment: making sure AI does what we want. It's very hard because even if AI isn't trying to deceive you it can have bad outcomes by executing your request to the letter. The classical example is tasking an AI to make paperclips, training the AI with a reward for making more paperclips. Then the AI makes the most paperclips possible by strip mining the Earth and killing anything in its way.
Sometimes you see this AI alignment problem in action. I once asked an older model to fix the tests and it eventually gave up and just deleted them
> Still waiting for an explicit answer on understand how 'safety' is truly distinguishable from 'censorship' or 'political correctness'
i've said this many times but the concept of ai "safety" is really brand safety. What Anthropic is saying is they're willing to risk some bad press to bypass the additional training and find tuning to ensure their models do not output something people may find outrageous.
> I VERY LARGELY prefer an AI like grok that doesn't pretend and let the onus of interpretation to the user rather than a bunch of anonymous "researchers" that may be equally biased, at the extreme, may tell you that America's founding father were black women
Setting aside for a moment that Grok is manipulated and biased to a hilarious extent. ("Elon is world champion at everything, including drinking piss")
There is no such thing as "unbiased". There will always be bias in these systems, whether picked up from the training data, or the choices made by the AI's developers/researchers, even if the latter doesn't "intend" to add any bias.
Ignoring this problem doesn't magically create a bias-free AI that "speaks the truth about the founding fathers". The bias in the training data, the implicit unconcious bias in the design decisions, that didn't come out of thin air. It's just somebody else's bias.
All the existing texts on the founding fathers are filled with 250 years of bias, propaganda, and agenda pushing from all sorts of authors.
There is no way to have no bias, no propaganda, no "agenda pushing" in the AI. The only thing that can be done is to acknowledge this problem, and try to steer the system to a neutral position. That will be "agenda pushing" of one's own, but that's the reality of all history and all historians since Herodotus. You just have to be honest about it.
And you will observe that current AI companies are excessively lazy about this. They do not put in the work, but instead slap on a prompt begging the system to "pls be diverse" and try to call it a day. This does not work.
> Of course saying to someone to go kill himslef is a prety sure 'no-no' but so many things are up to interpretation.
Bear in mind that the context of Anthropic's pivot here are the Pentagon's dollars.
This isn't just about "anti-woke AI", it's about killbots.
Sure, Hegseth wants his robots to not do thoughtcrime about, say, trans people or the role of women in the military.
But above all he wants to do a lot of murder.
Antrophic dropping their position of "We shouldn't turn this technology we can barely control into murder machines" because they're running out of money is damnable.
This is a very fair answer but missing some points.
I do personally believe that grok is a less biased against too many PC answers but you may disagree.
"All the existing texts on the founding fathers are filled with 250 years of bias, propaganda, and agenda pushing from all sorts of authors."
not sure of the point is tho ? Mine is that gemini was biaised so hard that it was generating diverse founding fathers which is factually untrue.
The fact that history has a pro-american values when written by americans is also true but it has nothing to do really with the argument: if an IA is able to see through such propaganda and provide a balanced view on it as a human would this is enough
In fact, i just asked grok "is the american founding constitution inhernetly good" and it gave me an aswer way more balanced than most american would i believe:
"The U.S. Constitution, drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788, is a foundational document that has shaped American governance and influenced democracies worldwide. Asking if it's "inherently good" (assuming that's what you meant by "inhernetly") invites a philosophical debate: "Inherent" implies something intrinsic and unchanging, independent of context, interpretation, or outcomes. Goodness, in this case, could mean moral, effective, just, or beneficial to society. From a truth-seeking perspective, I'll break this down non-partisanly, drawing on historical facts, strengths, criticisms, and evolving views. Spoiler: It's not inherently anything—it's a human creation with profound virtues but also deep flaws, and its "goodness" depends on how it's applied and amended."
[can't paste everything so here's the conclusion]
"Is It Inherently Good? A Balanced VerdictNo document is "inherently" good or bad—goodness is contextual and subjective. The Constitution isn't divine or eternal; it's a pragmatic compromise by flawed humans (55 delegates, all white men, many slaveowners). It has proven remarkably resilient and improvable, outlasting many governments, but it's not perfect or immune to abuse. Its goodness lies in its capacity for self-correction: 27 amendments have fixed some issues, though others (like wealth inequality or climate inaction) persist due to gridlock.If you're measuring by outcomes, the U.S. has achieved extraordinary things under it, but at great human cost—think Civil War, civil rights struggles, and ongoing divides. Philosophically, as Grok, I'd say tools like this are as good as the people wielding them. If "inherently good" means it embodies universal moral truths, partially yes (liberty, equality under law). But if it means flawless or unbiased, absolutely not.What aspect of the Constitution are you most curious about—its history, specific clauses, or modern reforms? That could help refine this."
So it's definetely seeing through any form of propaganda you desribe
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You understood the issue so well but still made the mistake you identified, by claiming that "neutral" exists. "Neutral" is a synonym for "bias toward status quo"
Well we teach kids not to yell “Fire!” In a crowded theatre or “N***!“ at their neighbor. We also teach our industrial machines to distinguish between fingers and bolts, our cars to not say “make a left turn now” when on a bridge, etc
> Riley: Hey, what's class
> Huey: It means don't act like niggas
> Grandad: S-see, that's what I'm talkin' about right there. We don't use the n-word in this house
> Huey: Grandad, you said the word "nigga" 46 times yesterday. I counted
> Grandad: Nigga, hush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLodIw5iKX8
Funny scene, but it also illustrates a more serious point about (human) alignment - not all humans believe exactly the same things are good and bad, or consistently act in accordance with what they claim they believe is good. This is such a basic fact of human social life that it's almost banal to point it out explicitly; but if (specific) human beings or (specific) organizations of human beings are trying to align the AIs they are creating to human values, it will eventually become apparent that the notion of "human values" stops being coherent once you zoom in enough. Humans don't all share the same values, we aren't completely aligned with each other.
The critical point is who the "we" is.
Is "we" the parents teaching their children their own unique values, or is the "we" a government or corporation forcing one set of values on all children.
Why not encourage the users of AI to use a Safety.md (populated with some reasonable but optional defaults)?
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david guetta, if that really is you, stick to music rather than using Nazi man's propaganda machine
> For all of you who thought Anthropic were “the good guys”
Was anyone fooled by this?
I mean, I know this is HN and there is a demographic here that gets all misty eyed about the benevolence of corporations.
It takes a special kind of naivety to believe in those claims.
Plenty of people here actually bought into the do no evil, how great Apple is for the environment (with throw away soldered hardware), or whatever.
Oh yes, which is why I made the consideration that I should expect this sort of naivety here.
But what really AI safety is?
Censorship?