alt Hacker NewsI think using open-source AI is no longer about API cost but about company survival.
Take Anthropic for an example. Anthropic has successfully destroyed customer trust, at least for me. DHH in a recent interview mentioned that Claude refused to translate an article about immigration. Not summarize. Not editorialize. Translate! I think this reveals an unacceptable level of paternalism: Anthropic fundamentally believes that it possesses a moral authority superior to the people actually paying for the API. If such basic and mechanical translation is already too sensitive to touch, the goalposts have moved from safety into outright censorship. What prevents them from quietly deciding tomorrow that your proprietary business logic, financial data, or legal documents cross their invisible moral line?
Let alone how Anthropic treats Cursor and Figma - not that they are wrong as companies are free to compete legally, but nonetheless it shows that companies can't outsource their intelligence to a potential competitor.
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I like the Claude constitution overall - I hope it becomes something representatives vote on and amend, to avoid the centralized corporate censorship you describe. In the meantime, I am fine with it abstaining from doing DHH’s bidding, especially because there are so many AI alternatives.
Ah, yes, I'm sure the article that moral paragon DHH wished to translate was not at all harmful, and that this was a good-faith effort on his part /s
While I agree that Claude can be overly paternalistic at times, how should it respond to a request to translate, say, bomb-making instructions? It's reasonable to me that it might refuse this.
I get what you're saying and it's concerning how much power these big labs have amassed and how little transparency there is in what they do with it...
But I doubt this a major factor in the trend. I just don't think it's something most corporate users run into. My understanding is these guardrails are negotiable for enterprise customers anyway.
And, not for nothing, but if I owned a human-powered translation company I would've refused to translate it too.