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burkaman • today at 5:22 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

The reason it appears corrupt is that OpenAI has the exact same restrictions (https://openai.com/index/our-agreement-with-the-department-o...) but was not declared a supply chain risk. If two vendors have the same restrictions and they only designate one, then the designation must be arbitrary and/or capricious.

Edit: I was wrong, the statement I linked is extremely dishonest and I was misled. The contract language lower down makes it clear that there are no "red lines", and OpenAI products can in fact be used for mass domestic surveillance, autonomous weapons, and social credit systems as long as they are considered legal.


Replies

gruez • today at 5:34 PM

>OpenAI has the exact same restrictions

No it doesn't. Specifically OpenAI had a "all lawful purposes" clause (which plausibly includes the existing mass surveillance apparatus), but Anthropic did not.

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hintymad • today at 5:33 PM

I thought the difference is that clearly written rules or SLAs are acceptable and can even be negotiated before signing a contract, but having a person, in this case Amodei himself, manually approve DOJ's usage case by case with his own moral judgement after a contract is signed is not okay.

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CodeWriter23 • today at 5:32 PM

Do you think OpenAI's terms for the DoD are published on a website? Pretty sure when Anthropic got zapped, OpenAI sent DoD a memo 500ms later saying they wouldn't restrict use.

Look at it pragmatically. What does the DoD use every single procurement for? Hint: military use.

paulddraper • today at 5:25 PM

Were they the same restrictions though?

OpenAI just said no surveillance of U.S. persons.

Anthropic could have gone further; I think it's likely they did.

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