Comment by pamcake
3 days ago
I'd hold off making that call on Anthropic here until at least after Friday. I'm not sure if persisting that "constructive dialogue is taking place in good faith" and saying nothing else in public signifies backbone considering preceding and consecutive public statements by government officials... It certainly doesn't instil confidence in honesty or transparency.
What happens on Friday?
The deadline given to them by Hegseth runs out.
"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened Anthropic, saying officials could invoke powers that would allow the government to force the artificial intelligence firm to share its novel technology in the name of national security if it does not agree by Friday to terms favorable to the military"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/24/pentago...
https://archive.is/ln5M0
Isn't this entirely theather? I'm sure Musk's XAI would have no qualms about working with the Department That Used To Be Called Department Of Defense.
Hell, there's a significant sharing of people between them and SpaceX, meaning the company's full of people with security clearances working on defense contracts.
Anthropic also seems to have dropped their safety pledge in a matter that I'm sure is completely unrelated.
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The could shut down the company and `rm -rf *` all their assets, no?
Friday is the deadline that the secretary of defense, Hegseth, gave Anthropic for complying with the "allow the military version of claude to do mass surveillance and autonomous killing" order.
I suspect when given contradictory options maybe there’s a their or fourth option. Move to the moon!
Secretary of war
I mean they got threatened with the Defense Production Act. Firmly standing their ground without an inch of give may backfire spectacularly too, if the DoD injects itself into model training.
I think they pretty clearly demonstrated good faith and where it ends up is a tactical choice I'm not in a great position to judge.
If DoD seizes the IP, the issue is they will need the cooperation of their scientists at least in the short term, if they want it to remain a fronter model. The labor angle isn't entirely guaranteed though the white collar worker has very little spine in this country.
> DoD seizes the IP
Almost certainly not on the table. If Hegseth did this he’d crash the market. That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.
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yeah, but the question I'd be asking myself is,
Hey, so what you are saying is that unless we use the AI that we control, to take control of the mass surveillance and autonomous drone strike systems, you will force us to take control of these systems?
I mean, did H just Open Clawed the entire US military?