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Comments (316)

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  mrandish
  When @sama announced within hours that OAI was replacing Anthropic with the "same conditions ", it was clear that either the DoW or OAI (or both) were fudging. DoW balked at Anthropic's conditions so OAI's agreement must have made the "conditions" basically unenforceable.And sure enough, my reading of it left the impression the OAI conditions were basically "DoW won't do anything which violates the rules DoW sets for itself."
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  epicprogrammer
  It's easy to frame this purely as an ethical battle, but there's a massive financial reality here. Training frontier models requires astronomical amounts of capital, and the DOD is one of the few entities with deep enough pockets to fund the next generation of compute. Anthropic turning down this Pentagon contract over safety disagreements is a huge gamble. They are essentially betting that the enterprise market will reward their 'Constitutional AI' approach enough to offset the billions OpenAI will now make from government defense contracts. OpenAI wants the DOD money while maintaining a consumer-friendly PR sheen; Amodei is just pointing out that they can't have it both ways.
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  6Az4Mj4D
  Leaving autonomous weapons aside, how does Anthropic justifies that they signed up with surveillance company Palantir and now raising concerns for same surveillance with DoD?It doesn't match.
• juleiie
  There are no ‘good’ companies but I like anthropic little bit more than the others as of this moment right now.Would buy their stock, would sell OpenAI, maaybe. If it was public. Maybe instead of MSFT and AMZN I bought
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  virgildotcodes
  Dario's full memo - https://pasteboard.co/4Qlmsorrytlk.jpg
• mellosouls
  Full text claimed on Reddit here:https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropic/comments/1rl1ula/dario_tr...
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  hendzen
  @pg on @sama: "you could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king."In retrospect this quote comes across as way more foreboding given what we've learned about the scale of his ambitions and his willingness to lie and bend reality to gain power.Dario on the other hand seems to have an integrity that's particularly rare in this era. I hope he remains strong in the face of the regime.
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  navaed01
  To play devils advocate - why should a government supplier and private company (Anthropic) and 1 man there - get to decide what an organization with elected officials can and can’t do? Dario has no idea of threats facing the US and where national security needs to go. Dario has personal views on weapons and surveillance- that’s fine but national defense tactics by their nature is something many people are uncomfortable with.
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  df2dfs
  What's there to discuss? OAI is seeking a hand-out from the govt to save their asses. They (Sam + top-management) see the writing on the wall and need help.
• vintagedave
  I canceled my ChatGPT subscription today, and send support@openai.com a polite email saying why.I encourage you to do the same.Claude Desktop is better anyway -- and, as we have seen, Anthropic is a more ethical company.
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  paxys
  Sam Altman would lie? Nooo
• vldszn
  I built a website that shows a timeline of recent events involving Anthropic, OpenAI, and the U.S. government.Posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195085
• zug_zug
  Great, well deepseek is free for most use and certainly won't be helping the US military any time soon. Since you aren't paying them you aren't really supporting anything bad they may do down the line.
• blueblisters
  In a broader context, both labs are engaging in "safety theater".Neither know how to solve the alignment problem while market pressures are making them race towards capabilities (long horizon, continual learning) that will have disastrous consequences .
• louiereederson
  And they're reportedly back in talks with the DOW per the FT (below).They are not the exception, and are just as bloodlessly, shamelessly publicity hungry as any other tech co, if not more so. No surprise based on their conduct up until this fake event.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47256452
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  _alternator_
  Anyone have a link to the full text of the letter?
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  sjfaljf
  I wonder who asked for these two safety conditions first, DoW or Anthropic. I remember reading earlier that president's family is an early investor in openai, anthropic was winning this year, both companies are on the way to ipo. It could have been a trap, loose-loose situation - drop safety requirements and loose reputation, stay firm on safety - loose contract.
• anon
  undefined
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  KnuthIsGod
  Meanwhile Anthropic has no issues with helping Palantir...HypocrAIsy...
• Havoc
  OpenAI never had a strong brand around truthfulness
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  SirensOfTitan
  Like others have already mentioned: I think Anthropic's relationship with Palantir undermines Amodei's narrative here. It actually feels like Dario is playing Sam's game better than Sam is.Those who know better please correct me. My current understanding of Palantir (and other surveillance tech companies like Peregrine) is:1. They facilitate the sale of data to law enforcement, enabling the government to circumvent fourth amendment protections.2. They fuse cross-government agency data through Foundry and fuse them into unified profiles which the government can use to surveil and pressure citizens without probable cause or a warrant.ICE also uses a Palantir tool called ELITE to build deportation target lists.EDIT: Downvoting my comment without any proper rebuttal or clarification is pretty silly.
• cm2012
  Good for Anthropic. Even AI at its current state has pretty scary surveillance capabilities.
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  hintymad
  Honest question: why do people automatically equate "fully autonomous weapons" to something like killer robot? My immediate reaction is that even the best-in-class rapid-fire gun has a hard time identifying and tracking drones. So, we'd need AI to do better tracking, which leads to a fully autonomous weapon. And I really don't get why that's a bad thing.Of course, a company should have freedom to choose not to do business with the government. I just think that automatically assuming the worst intention of the government is not as productive as setting up good enough legal framework to limit government's power.
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  behnamoh
  Neither Anthro nor OAI are trustworthy. Local AI all the way. And when I say local, I mean Apple Silicon; I don't like to contribute to Nvidia's monopoly either (fuck "buy a GPU"; the guy is an Nvidia-sponsored "influencer").
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  BLKNSLVR
  Let's just not put Dario / Anthropic on an undeserved pedestal. "Well, they're not as bad as Sam / OpenAI" is not, and should not be, much of a compliment.
• mentalgear
  Reminder that European LLM companies like Mistral's "LeChat" are also now really good!
• henry2023
  please treat this post as a reminder to cancel any subscription to OpenAI and delete your account from their platform.Maybe it’s not much and they probably won’t care but taking no action here it’s the same as being complicit.
• asey
  And yet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47256452
• biffles
  It was fascinating to see OpenAI’s gaslighting in action last week. Signing their deal with the DoW and then announcing it so publicly clearly had the goal to (a) portray Anthropic as unreasonable actors that couldn’t come up with a “safe” solution like OpenAI and (b) take away all the leverage Anthropic had in the contract negotiations. Clever (in a Machiavellian sort of way) but still can’t understand why they did it so blatantly — literally hours after Anthropic was designated persona non grata by the government. Clearly this has backfired in a massive way.In a way, I admire Dario’s stance and having the backbone to stand up to a government that is so happy to punish, legally or illegally, those that disagree with them. I certainly wouldn’t have the bravery (or stupidity) in his position — which frankly makes me happy that he’s running Anthropic and not someone like me…
• Imustaskforhelp
  OAI employees, please talk.~93 Employees signed up the notdivided.org petition. Some of OAI employees could be reading this comment right now.Let's be real, OpenAI backstabbed Anthropic. Even Dario has essentially just said it now.(Shameless plug?) but I created an ASK HN about it: Ask HN: What will OpenAI employees do now who have signed notdividedorg petition [0] and not a single person from OAI responded when I just wanted to discuss :/ and hey that's fine I don't mind but please don't mind me either when I re-raise this topicFrom a comment from the thread about OAI on hackernews by tedsanders (OAI employee) [Please don't harass anybody]> I'm an OpenAI employee and I'll go out on a limb with a public comment. I agree AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. I also think Anthropic has been treated terribly and has acted admirably. My understanding is that the OpenAI deal disallows domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, and that OpenAI is asking for the same terms for other AI companies (so that we can continue competing on the basis of differing services and not differing scruples). Given this understanding, I don't see why I should quit. If it turns out that the deal is being misdescribed or that it won't be enforced, I can see why I should quit, but so far I haven't seen any evidence that's the case.Ted, if you are reading this, I truly felt like you were right. I was still skeptic because part of me felt like it doesn't make sense and well it didn't. But I had trusted ya and I thought that you had far greater insights than us but now I am not sure...Sir, I have no ill-will towards you but I just want to know, you have gone silent after this comment and one another about GPT 5.3 instant as far as I can see. You did say in the first that you will go out on a limb with public comment, so please don't mind me if I ask questions in public about that commentThe question is: But what now? Do you see now why you should quit?That being said, I still respect you ted for atleast trying to say it on a community, you had no reason to but took the risk. I genuinely hope that you realize that this question is coming from a place of concern. OpenAI employees like you , were also deceived by OpenAI/Sam altman itself, in a way even more so than us. You had no monetary reason I suppose to go ahead and say it but you did based on your understanding at that time. and I respect it because it shows to me that maybe just maybe OAI employees aren't driven by just money as people would like to point out.If this is what an OAI employee is saying, weren't they deceived too? weren't they humiliated in public by being proven wrong, losing their accountability/trust within a community?The comments just turn to well money speaks, I agree, but does money speak so much that you cannot hear your peers/own community?I still believe on the fringe thought that OAI employees have some say in all of this. 98 employees (no of employees who signed notdivided.org) leaving have 1000 fold more magnitude than 98 people not using OAI. You have power, and with it comes responsibility.I just want a discussion with OpenAI Employees in general / especially with those who signed NotDivided.org or who are part of this community of hackernews like ted. what do YOU guys make up of all the situation?A lot of this situation if historians ever write about it, would feel so close to "I was just following orders" than not. No sadly this is not hyperbole now because what we are talking about is the creation of autonomous killing machines which can kill anyone without any human in the loop.People from the future are also gonna ask us general public why we didn't held the people working accountable, in a similar fashion as to the past.Once again, I still mean to bring no hate towards anyone. Make peace not war. I just want to think that the world would be a better place for my future children and generation and I would like to hope that this comment can be meaningful towards it.Have a nice day as one can in a situation like this. A lot of the things I say or do is the same things I asked the people of past when reading history in my classes, Why didn't you guys do X or Y, Why didn't the public say anything. Why was it silent? But we are gonna be history too and someone is gonna ask us why were we silent and I just want to make the answer I tried rather than I don't know. I sort of wanted to learn something from history.Sincerely, We (the public) want a discussion with OpenAI employees about it. Please don't be silent as silence will be interpreted by the future generations as agreement. Please speak. Tell us what you all are doingA lot of the times it feels like I am shouting in the void tho in these matters as these messages just straight up don't go to the right people and that feeling sucks because at some point, I am gonna get tired shouting in the void too.If anyone also has contacts with OAI employees, please ask them such questions and share us the responses if possible. I just want some answers, that's all.[0]: Ask HN: What will OpenAI employees do now who have signed notdividedorg petition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47231498
• mbix77
  But now he's anyway at the table with them? Bullshitters all around. Fully open-source models are the only way.
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  cfloyd
  It’s all just theatre. These companies will either give in or die off and be replaced by those who offer more freedom of use. It’s capitalism and while it’s not always pretty, it’s how these things go. Choosing to take what you believe as the moral high ground is noble but it does not put your company ahead of the ball in the long term because there are always those who will use that as an advantage to step on their backs.
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  aeon_ai
  I get the sense that OpenAI is astroturfing “outrage and hypocrisy” in this thread.The dead internet is alive and well.
• deanmoriarty
  It’s entirely possible that people who are praising this CEO might have to come up with incredibly convoluted mental gymnastics to defend their position soon: “Anthropic chief back in talks with Pentagon about AI deal”.Source: https://www.ft.com/content/97bda2ef-fc06-40b3-a867-f61a711b1...
• anon
  undefined
• karmasimida
  And he is back to Pete hegeseth now? Lollll
• etchalon
  "Person says its raining when its raining."
• shablulman
  [dead]
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  6Az4Mj4D
  [flagged]
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  Frannky
  [flagged]
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  senectus1
  and?Anthropic might not sign up with DoD but they definitely still live in a glass house.Also, its extremely evident that we live in a post truth world. The accusation of Lies dont hold any teeth anymore. Especially in the post law gov of America
• mrcwinn
  I was recently admonished by dang or dong or whatever his username is for criticizing Sam Altman’s personal character. But I’m here to say again, Sam Altman is a lying sack of sh*t and PG’s partially culpable for allowing a known lunatic to run OpenAI.
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  creddit
  He has to know that this would leak and it makes him look really bad. This is going to be a meaningful, unforced error.
• anon
  undefined