Comment by 6Az4Mj4D

Yeah, it never made sense when Sam immediately said that they had the same constraints yet de DoW immediately agreed with that.

From what I can see, OpenAI’s terms basically say “need to comply with the law”, which provides them with plenty of wiggle room with executive orders and whatnot.

Are you sure about that? Every information I’ve seen suggests that the DoD has been using Anthropic’s models through Palantir.

My understanding is that Anthropic requested visibility and a say into how their models were being used for classified tasks, while the DoD wanted to expand the scope of those tasks into areas that Anthropic found objectionable. Both of those proposals were unacceptable for the other side.

“We’ve actually held our red lines with integrity rather than colluding with them to produce ‘safety theater’ for the benefit of employees (which, I absolutely swear to you, is what literally everyone at [the Pentagon], Palantir, our political consultants, etc, assumed was the problem we were trying to solve),” Amodei reportedly wrote.

“The real reasons [the Pentagon] and the Trump admin do not like us is that we haven’t donated to Trump (while OpenAI/Greg have donated a lot),” he wrote, referring to Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, who gave a Pac supporting Trump $25m in conjunction with his wife.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/sam-altma...

Sam donated $1M to Trump's inaugural fund. Dario did not.

http://magamoney.fyi/executives/samuel-h-altman/

They are providing the software to do surveillance, They are definetly bad actors, you can dance around this all you want, but they are in it.

Their data integration and sale allows for the government to surveil citizens without probable cause or warrants.

Sure, but it's not as if the DoD was planning on using Anthropic to _collect_ the data either? I assume that the hypothetical DoD use case Anthropic shied away from dealt with the processing of surveillance data, just like what Palantir does.

It's funny you'd pick IBM:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

Though, I guess IBM did get away with lots of stuff that... Actually, did any supply companies in the WWII German war machine actually get in trouble for war crimes, or did they just go after officers and the people actually working in the camps?

The company selling punchcards that were used for logistics was apparently fine. What about the people making the gas canisters, or supplying plumbing fixtures? The plumbers? Where's the line?

Wondering, since this is increasingly becoming a current events question instead of an academic concern.

I think a company which provides a sensor fusion dragnet for a government-run mass domestic civilian surveillance system is at least as culpable (and odious) than the ones supplying the data.

> They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments

Good thing IBM's data integration was never used for ill!

Oh, wait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_World_War_II

Basically it’s glorified Excel.

Take it out on the database purveyors, not Palantir.

Every single time the box is flipped over, whats inside is "more domestic surveillance". Who in their right mind would give the benefit of the doubt?

> The moral disposition of the Anthropic leaders doesn't matter because they don't own the company. Investors won't idly watch them decimate billions in ROI by alienating the largest institutional customers on the planet.

Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation chartered in Delaware, with an expressed commitment to "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity."

So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit.

If they're doing it against the terms of service (and publicly so), I can't pin that one on Anthropic.

They've done lots wrong and maybe they shouldn't have gotten in bed with the military to begin with, but this illegal war is not theirs. It rests squarely with the President who declared it. (And with the military officers who are going along with it despite the violation of international law.)

I wish people like you would actually talk to people at Anthropic, maybe interview with the company, actually engage with the real humans there before making blithe comments like this.

Seriously, you're on HN, you can't possibly be that many degrees removed from someone at the company.

In any case it's absolutely not "just marketing", it suffuses their whole culture, and it is genuine.

"The law" is the contract. The Pentagon agreed to terms of service. The law is not on the Pentagon's side. The contract did not change; what changed is the Pentagon breaking the contract.

Perhaps you think the law shouldn't allow such a contract; that's a valid position. But that's not what the law currently says.

> if its within the law.

The current administration has been caught flouting court orders in dozens of cases, to the point that courts are no longer even granting them the assumption that they’re operating in good faith.

I can think of a million good reasons not to give these people the tools to implement automated totalitarianism. Your proposal that they simply refuse service to the government entirely would be ideal.

The government works for the people, not the other way around. For the people, by the people and of the people.

If you don't question people in positions of power they will just do whatever they want. Democracy is sustained by action, not by acquiescence.

And with the lawlessness of this administration, I would make it a point to hold them accountable. I'm not going to let them do mass surveillance when they decide to change the law.

Are you native, or just ignoring what is going on?

It’s a service. Democracy doesn’t give the government the right to force you to perform a service.

The technology isn’t suitable for the purposes the regime wants.

That is crazy. You are suggesting that corporations should have no power over their own IP.

Are you really saying that if Anthropic sells a limited version of their product to Palantir at a certain price, the government should be able to demand access to an unlimited version of Anthropic's product for free because they are a customer of Palantir?

That would effectively mean the government gets an unlimited license to all IP of companies that do business with government suppliers... that would be terrible.