Comment by dddgghhbbfblk
14 hours ago
A moral stand? ... What? Did we read the same statement? It opens right out the gate with:
>I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries.
>Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community. We were the first frontier AI company to deploy our models in the US government’s classified networks, the first to deploy them at the National Laboratories, and the first to provide custom models for national security customers. Claude is extensively deployed across the Department of War and other national security agencies for mission-critical applications, such as intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more.
which I find frankly disgusting.
Freedom isn’t free. Someone has to defend the democratic values that you and I take for granted.
Dario’s statement is in support of the institution, not the current administration.
The democratic values I take for granted is under direct threat from the us. Your government is literally funding separatist movements in my country.
I mean, obviously.
But when was the last time our "democratic values" were under attack by a foreign country and actually needed defending?
9/11? Pearl Harbor?
Maybe I'm missing something. We have a giant military and a tendency to use it. On occasion, against democratically elected leaders in other countries.
You're right; freedom isn't free. But foreign countries aren't exactly the biggest threats to American democracy at the moment.
You have the causality at least partially backwards. Why has it been so long and infrequent that the US has been in direct conflict with authoritarian adversaries? Because we have a giant military and a willingness to use it. Pacifism and isolationism do not work as defensive strategies.
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The last time the US defended freedom through military means was WWII.
As Abraham Lincoln said, the greatest threat to freedom in America is a domestic tyrant, not a foreign army.
Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq War I, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq War II were all fought for or over democratic ideals & the defense of democratic institutions.
All were driven by multiple competing and sometimes conflicting goals, and many look questionable in hindsight. It is fair to critique.
But it is absolutely not the case that the last time the US defended freedom through military means was WWII.
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They are undeniably taking a moral stand. Among other things, the statement explains that there are two use cases that they refuse to do. This is a moral stand. It might not align with your morals, but it's still a moral stand.
I feel like the deepest technical definition of autocratic is “fully autonomous weapons”?