Comment by marcellus23
19 hours ago
The GP's use of the word "impose" didn't seem perjorative to me or suggest that Anthropic is the offender and the government is the victim. I think you're reading a lot into a simple word choice and this response seems way too hostile.
Are you really going to pretend that “impose their morals” is a completely value-neutral statement?
It certainly was intended as such. In a commercial transaction, that's what they're doing. They don't think it's moral to use their product in certain ways. They are thus prohibiting their customer from using it in such ways.
But, as I've said, I tend to agree with both Anthropic and the Administration's positions. What was wrong here is that rather than just terminating the contract, the Administration went nuclear.
It seems value-neutral to me. It's descriptive. Particularly for anyone who understands that different groups of people will legitimately disagree on many moral questions.
What would be the value neutral way to phrase it?
"Anthropic wanted its product to not be used in ways that contradict its ethics".
"Impose" makes it sound like Anthropic is being hostile here. And also, I don't think this is a situation that calls for moral relativism.
1 reply →
A "simple word choice"?? This isn't just about the single word "impose", read the whole post:
> Per DoD Directive 3000.09 (dtd 25 January 2023), any use of AI in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems must undergo rigorous verification, validation, and testing to ensure they perform as intended in realistic environments before deployment. The emphasized language is the delta between what OpenAI agreed and what Anthropic wanted.
> OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its own morals into the use of its products.
So first off, regarding that first paragraph, didn't any of these idiots watch WarGames, or heck, Terminator? This is not just "oh, why are you quoting Hollywood hyperbole" - a hallmark of today's AI is we can't really control it except for some "pretty please we really really mean it be nice" in the system prompt, and even experts in the field have shown how that can fail miserably: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...
Second, yes, I am relieved Anthropic wanted to "impose" their morals because, if anything, the current administration has been loud and clear that the law basically means whatever they says it does and will absolutely push it to absurd limits, so I now value "legal limits" as absolutely meaningless - what is needed are hard, non-bullshit statements about red lines, and Anthropic stood by the those, and Altman showed what a weasel he is and acceded to their demands.