Comment by Fraterkes

10 days ago

"We believe in broad access, and we plan to make GPT‑5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna generally available in the coming weeks. As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models’ capabilities ahead of today’s launch. At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly. During this preview, we will continue testing and coordinating closely with partners as we work toward broader availability. We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them. We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks, while we work with the Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases."

This amount of courting the current administration is pretty scary imo.

> This amount of courting the current administration is pretty scary imo.

That’s ironic – I interpreted that paragraph with the opposite slant: positively. If that’s what the government mandates then these companies, in the end, have little choice, so was at least relieved to see them publicly pushing back.

  • >these companies, in the end, have little choice

    They absolutely do have a choice, Anthropic and OpenAI could fight it in court. Iran showed Trump is a coward, he wouldn't risk tanking the only industry still keeping the stock market growing.

    • “Wouldn’t it be a shame if we export controlled all of your models and revoked the visas and green cards of all of your non US researchers. You should really reconsider challenging our orders in court. Also remember you have 16% public support and if the president endorsed it a national data center moratorium would pass with bipartisan majorities.”

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    • > Anthropic and OpenAI could fight it in court.

      They did exactly that with supply chain risk designation, and look what it got them: the administration simply found another more effective way to punish them.

    • It’s all speculation but I think he would have no qualms about tanking the only industry keeping the stock market growing. But given Kushner’s OAI investments, Trump stands to benefit personally from not tanking the industry.

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I wonder what's going to happen when the administration rolls over to the OtherTeam(tm). If they've established a good relationship with Team A then Team B is automatically going to hate their guts.

seems pretty smart to me. opens doors and provides opportunities that those that don't court the government will miss out on. of course, if they're principled, that's okay (regardless of which admin it is), but the reality is most companies aren't. gotta get a leg up somehow.

Anthropic's fear-mongering and marketing is the reason we have these restrictions in the first place.

Despite their virtue signaling, Anthropic is the only major lab that has never released an open weights model, has been caught intentionally nerfing a model after release (Opus 4.6), intentionally and silently degrades performance for suspected competitors and AI researchers, complains incessantly about distillation when everyone is doing it (and after they settled for pirating books), and wants to pull the ladder out from everyone trying to catch up.

They're anti-consumer and only concerned with holding the power themselves. I'm not a fan of Altman, but Anthropic is the worst actor in the space, and I hope they lose.

  • Anthropic is the lightning rod.

    Everyone in the space was talking about the automation of work from about day 2. People couldn’t stop themselves from talking about the way it was going to end work, and tech firms were firing people left right and center over AI.

    Notably, Anthropic is the firm that stuck to its guns with the US Government, meaning they likely believe in their own spiel.

  • > Anthropic's fear-mongering

    I mean it's fear-mongering until it isn't. I think people have become a bit too comfortable with dismissing the dangers of misaligned AI as simply "marketing hype".

  • What about openai's fear mongering, or googles, or JP Morgans, or Frank Herbert's, or Arthur C. Clarke's or Samuel Butler's?

    If you can't envision plausible scenarios where very bad things happen because of a malevolent actor, ChatGPT 6, and a little bad luck - you need to think harder.

    • Yeah honestly I don't get any of the fear-mongering from any side. If access to intelligence and knowledge is scary to you, that's a you problem.

      Is it going to change the world? Yes. In more positive ways than negative ways. Websites will continue to get hacked, as they are already getting hacked. People who are afraid of AI are really just afraid of change.

This is pure openai though. I can call anthropic misguided, but openai is just slimy.

Do you feel the same way about FDA approvals?

I mean, it seems like common sense - a limited beta test before widespread rollout. I'm not convinced they'll ever come up with a good framework for dealing with the cyber & bio issues, but getting triggered by a beta test rollout seems overboard.

  • It is common sense, and with literally any other administration in the past century it would seem like a good idea.

    I have zero confidence that this particular administration has any interest in regulating the industry for the good of the country, much less for the good of humanity. They will use regulation to maximize personal profit for themselves and their cronies, at the expense of the nation. I would not have thought that of any other US administration in the past 100 years.

    In the longer run, it probably won't matter. If the level of corruption we see currently becomes the norm, then the US is facing much bigger problems than counter-productive industrial policy.

  • The FDA has incredibly detailed guidelines that need to be followed, and a clear process to be followed. This is none of that.

    • If you're arguing they should have believed the AI doomer hype years ago and developed decades of regs at the drop of a hat, sure, i guess you can. That's a topic for historians.

      But, the question today is what to do today, a rolling deployment seems pretty hard to argue with.

      I'd add, I think it's significant that we haven't seen any administration grandstanding on this specific issue - no Hegseth tweets etc.

  • The difference is that FDA approvals are a well-defined process with specific and actionable criteria for the release of a new product. Whereas this is the administration running on vibes and favouritism

    • I'm not going to defend the administration on most things, but your characterization isn't entirely fair. The record seems to suggest that the administration deferred to Amazon and the NSA, which seems sensible.

      Perhaps you can fault them with not coming up with an objective framework earlier, but that's a different criticism.

  • 150 years ago, Bayer Inc. was mass producing Heroine. 130 years ago Merck and Parke-Davis were mass producing Cocaine(TM) -- all with zero oversight. It would be another 50 years before we even had an FDA and another 50 before the FDA was a reasonably well-oiled machine with a solid set of processes and requirements. Even then, it couldn't really (and can't really today either) prevent these non-US companies (both Heroine and Cocaine were German) from making and selling elsewhere.