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smsm42 • today at 7:06 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Antropic: "We don't want our AIs to be used by the Army to do yucky Army things!"

Army: "OK, we will make sure not to use your AIs"

Antropic: "How dare you! We are suing! We intended for you to keep using it but do only what we want!"

Army: "..."


Replies

hardbass • today at 7:54 PM

They weren't against military use of their AI. They were against using it to kill American citizens without oversight or mass surveil Americans.

➕ show 1 reply
sfink • today at 8:45 PM

...I suggest you read about what actually happened:

Anthropic: "We'll sell you access to our AI as long as you don't use it for war crimes or mass surveillance."

DoD: "Ok, deal."

...time passes...

DoD: "Wait, no, we want to be able to use it for war crimes too."

Anthropic: "Too late, you agreed already, and we won't sign a contract for that. You can keep using it for everything we agreed to."

DoD: "Change the terms or we will destroy your business."

Anthropic: "No."

DoD then signs contracts with OpenAI and Google that permit them to commit war crimes and mass surveillance as long as they get legal cover, and proceeds to apply as much leverage as it can to destroy Anthropic's business.

----

And for the record, Anthropic agreed to all "yucky Army things" usage that was an extension of past yucky Army things, they just did not agree to a new class of yucky Army things: namely, fully autonomous killbots. Even there, it was only "not yet, it's not ready". Your whole comment is a gross mischaracterization.

I quit using ChatGPT entirely over this incident, and that's not because I find Anthropic's position to be saintly. They agreed to a contract where the DoD could and in practice is using their AI for committing war crimes.