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Comment by nkoren

8 hours ago

This makes me a very happy Claude Max subscriber.

Finally, someone of consequence not kissing the ring. I hope this gives others courage to do the same.

As a European user, I‘m not happy at all. I can’t fail to notice that non-domestic mass surveillance is not excluded here. I won’t cancel my account just yet because Opus is the best at computer use. But as soon as Mistral catches up and works reasonably well, I‘ll switch.

The whole article reads as virtue signaling to me. Anthropic already has large defense contracts. Their models are already being used by the military. There's really no statement here.

  • How is it virtue signalling when sticking by these principles risks their entire business being destroyed by either being declared a supply chain risk or nationalized?

  • The notion that it's bad to signal virtue is one of the crazier propaganda efforts I've seen over the last 20 years or so.

  • A company being asked to violate their virtues refuses, and then communicates that to reestablish their commitment to said virtues?

    Tell me more about what they should do if a virtue signal in such a situation is a nothing statement.

I read the statement twice. I can't understand how you landed on "take my money".

Looks like an optics dance to me. I've noticed a lot of simultaneous positions lately, everyone from politicians and protesters, to celebrities and corporations. They make statements both in support of a thing, and against that same thing. Switching up emphasis based on who the audience is in what context. A way to please everyone.

To me the statement reads like Anthropic wants to be at the table, ready to talk and negotiate, to work things out. Don't expect updated bullet-point lists about how things are worked out. Expect the occasional "we are the goodies" statements, however.