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Comment by bko

8 hours ago

[flagged]

"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.

  • I'm saying they shouldn't write in their contract that they have some veto power of how their software is used if it's within the law of the land (ie laws written by congress)

    Is that more clear?

> 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.

  • Yes we obv need large corporations to exert some kind of control over our elected officials.

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?

  • I want people to question people in power. Thats kind of the point of democracy. But it's good to remember corporations aren't people :-)

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.

  • They can choose to sell to government agencies or not. But selling to them and then trying to have some veto power is wrong. So it sounds like we're in a agreement.

    I would like western Democratic powers to have the most advanced technology personally but you may disagree.

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.

  • Imagine if a gun manufacturer sold weapons to the military but said "don't use them is unjustified wars as we deem fit" seems wrong as we dont want gun manufacturers setting our foreign policy. Choose not to sell them sure, but this isn't "ownership of IP". If the feds were to ask for weights and torrent it out, sure IP. But this ain't that

    • Guns aren’t a service, which is what Anthropic sells.

      Anthropic has a contract for how their service is to be used, the government committed itself to following the contract by signing. Then it violated the contract.

      Basically the government committed fraud by signing a contract that it clearly intended to violate. Then they tried to bully Anthropic into not doing anything about their breach of contract.

      It’s mobster behavior. You’re saying Anthropic should just not sell services if it’s going to enforce the terms of service. You have it backwards: the government shouldn’t enter into contracts that it intends to violate.