Pete Hegseth declares Anthropic a supply-chain risk

Jacob_Peacock

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Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸

4mo

I've never been more proud to be part of the Effective Altruism movement

Anthropic aren't objecting to killbots as a matter of principle though, they are just saying the tech isn't reliable yet. The stand on surveillance seems principled and I absolutely admire Amodei for risking his business to do the right thing, but let's avoid deceiving ourselves about what his stance actually is.

Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸

4mo*

I'm glad as a movement we are able to appreciate this nuance too David. By no means does Anthropic get a free pass, especially since mass foreign surveillance wasnt part of their two non-negociables, as someone who is foreign to the US.

Still want to acknowledge the bold action they took in the face of an autocratic regime

NickLaing

4mo*

This was my first thought too. This line made my heart leap with joy!

"Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission"

Ben Stevenson

4mo

Department of War: “We don’t trade with ants”

Camille

4mo*

Hopefully americans will take this as a strong signal that their administration is in complete support of mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. I could scarcely think of a clearer signal.

Edit : After reading different sides of the story, I'm actually less certain about that. But I'm still updating towards more probability that "unfettered access" meant "occasionally unlawful use" rather than "lawful use but there's drama between us" given this reaction. I would certainly not have lended more probability if the administration hadn't reacted so abruptly.

New Edit: after reading more, I'm pretty convinced that both issues (or any action that I'd personally consider falling into both categories) are pretty much legal in the US.

Henry Stanley 🔸

4mo

I don’t think this is meaningfully different from previous admins (not sure about autonomous weapons but certainly mass surveillance of Americans at home has been going on since the 2010s).

Henry Stanley 🔸

4mo

I once had a conversation with a friend who felt that Anthropic advancing the AI frontier (despite their explicit commitment not to) was fine because they’re “leading from the front” in terms of their ethical stance.

It seems like that might not actually work? Advancing the frontier presumably encourages other labs to compete - and if those labs don’t have the same ethical strictures then leading from the front has no effect except to have moved the frontier forward faster than it would have otherwise…

(Referencing OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon announced shortly after the Anthropic sanctions)

Alex Parry

4mo

The double think involved to somehow try to sell government strong arming of private companies as a move for freedom and American values is wild.

Aithir

4mo

The EA movement has a PR problem with basically half the American political spectrum which includes the US President and also Elon Musk whose xAI is currently the fourth most capable American AI company and judging from the comments here, on X and elsewhere the plan seems to be to make it worse. Frankly the discourse isn't "effective" at all, but virtue signaling.

There are areas where almost unbridgeable tensions between the EA and the MAGA movement exist, but AI alignement really doesn't have to be one of them.

titotal

4mo

Effectiveness requires being able to tell the truth, even if it is unpalatable to certain political factions. The actions of Hegseth are unreasonable and set a horrible precedent for companies looking to maintain even the barest of moral principles. Anthropic tried to engage in good faith with the administration and were stabbed in the back over it.

David T

4mo*

In this case Anthropic chose to supply the DoW via a partnership with a company deeply embedded in the administration's part of the political spectrum, and even pointedly denied any objections to being used to support the administration's little expedition in Venezuela, and the administration decided that wasn't enough. There are many criticisms that can be made of Anthropic's stance on those issues; reluctance to engage with the current US administration isn't one of them.

If declining to actively support MAGA's demands they support development of AI with the explicit purpose of being an autonomous killing device is "virtue signalling", what's left of "AI alignment" to pursue?

Aithir

4mo

The most EA leaning AI company just took a major loss and Hegseth specifically called out the movement which strongly suggests that the future won't be what EAs would like it to be if he or people like him have a say about it which they will.

I've never been more proud to be part of the Effective Altruism movement

Why? Because it took the right stance and lost? Because MAGA is bad and dislikes EA? This is what I mean by virtue signaling. I should have been clearer about that in my initial comment.

If declining to actively support MAGA's demands they support development of AI with the explicit purpose of being an autonomous killing device is "virtue signalling", what's left of "AI alignment" to pursue?

I would prefer the US to have these capabilities over the US and non democratic-countries or just non-democratic countries having them. Amodei btw. also thinks that it might be necessary in the future to develop such weapons. He said so in this interview. He argues that legislation hasn't cought up with AI and that in the future Congress should decide on it and not a private company. But if you believe that AI improves on an exponential curve then future legislation will very quickly be even more outdated so that argument doesn't really make sense to me...

To clarify. I don't think declaring Anthropic a supply chain risk is justified.

PeterMcCluskey

4mo

It sure doesn't look like Anthropic has lost. See https://polymarket.com/event/anthropic-500b-valuation-in-2026 for evidence.

MaxSJC

4mo

Thanks for raising your concerns.

While I do think that the EA movement should not straight out alienate the MAGA movement, trying to pander to them is a dangerous move. Honestly, attempting a rational discourse with them is very difficult under the current climate, and perhaps even arguably futile. Under conditions like this, maybe the most effective action is to stand your ground (even there iffy things that Anthropic does) and oppose what are they trying to do (at least stop making the problem worse if you can no longer solve it)? Is having a moral bare minimum too much to ask?

This question of whether EA to attempting to win MAGA over reminds me of the current UK political situation (sorry if I get something badly inaccurate): Labour tried to garner the support of the far right and failed horribly cause the far right is going to hate it anyways. On the contrary, the Greens holds its ground and benefits a lot as a result!

Jens Nordmark

4mo

Seems difficult to have a good relation to movements that explicitly reject any kind of moral universalism.

ScienceMon🔸

4mo

I appreciate the different perspectives @Aithir , and it takes guts to go against the crowd (I upvoted). What do you think EAs should do differently? Both inside and outside of Anthropic

Deni555

4mo

It's hard to compromise with an administration which is against even traditional, barebones foreign aid, no? What is the EA movement supposed to do?
And that's not necessarily half of the American political spectrum

ScienceMon🔸

4mo

I counted 13 lies. Not bad for 140 characters!

SiobhanBall

4mo

Dario deserves his own memecoin ❤️

alea

4mo

Now that they've been labeled a supply chain risk - a designation Anthropic themselves call "one historically reserved for US adversaries" - I really hope someone there is seriously considering relocating to a less <fill in whichever colorful adjective comes to mind> country or, at least, considering resilience plans that involve operations elsewhere. My p(doom) would go down considerable if I knew this to be the case.

Mikhail Korsanov

4mo

If I were Amodei, I would create an open online ethical commission to develop ethical standards for autonomous AI weapons, similar to how a constitution was created for commercial AI. I would invite Google, OpenAI, X, as well as Chinese AI companies, to participate in discussions about proper ethical frameworks. I would also invite representatives from the Department of Defense and Congress. Those who oppose establishing ethical standards for autonomous weapons would have to consider how that stance might affect their public image.

At the same time, Amodei’s current decision may also be strategically sound, considering how much attention and how many downloads Anthropic receives after conflicts with the Pentagon.

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