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layer8today at 5:20 AM3 repliesview on HN

The difference is that Anthropic wanted to reserve the right to judge when the red lines are crossed, while OpenAI will defer to the DoD and its policies for that. In both cases, the two parties can claim to agree on the principles, but when push comes to shove, who decides on whether the principles are violated differs.


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remarkEontoday at 5:40 AM

Seems Anthropic did not understand the questions they were asked. From the WaPo:

>A defense official said the Pentagon’s technology chief whittled the debate down to a life-and-death nuclear scenario at a meeting last month: If an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched at the United States, could the military use Anthropic’s Claude AI system to help shoot it down?

>It’s the kind of situation where technological might and speed could be critical to detection and counterstrike, with the time to make a decision measured in minutes and seconds. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei’s answer rankled the Pentagon, according to the official, who characterized the CEO’s reply as: You could call us and we’d work it out.

>An Anthropic spokesperson denied Amodei gave that response, calling the account “patently false,” and saying the company has agreed to allow Claude to be used for missile defense. But officials have cited this and another incident involving Claude’s use in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as flashpoints in a spiraling standoff between the company and the Pentagon in recent days. The meeting was previously reported by Semafor.

I have a hunch that Anthropic interpreted this question to be on the dimension of authority, when the Pentagon was very likely asking about capability, and they then followed up to clarify that for missile defense they would, I guess, allow an exception. I get the (at times overwhelming) skepticism that people have about these tools and this administration but this is not a reasonable position to hold, even if Anthropic held it accidentally because they initially misunderstood what they were being asked.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260227182412/https://www.washi...

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pseudalopextoday at 5:36 AM

> The difference is that Anthropic wanted to reserve the right to judge when the red lines are crossed, while OpenAI will defer to the DoD and its policies for that.

You learned this where?

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outside1234today at 5:34 AM

This. Sam is going to pretend they aren’t going to use it for that because his company is collapsing in losses. He will never audit.

Probably also got assurances about a bailout when OpenAI collapses.