This is the strongest statement in the post:
> They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.
This contradictory messaging puts to rest any doubt that this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use. I really like Anthropic's approach here, which is to in turn state that they're happy to help the Governemnt move off of Anthropic. It's a messaging ploy for sure, but it puts the ball in the current administration's court.
Does the Defense Production Act force employees to continue working at Anthropic?
No. It really only binds the corporation, but it does hold the executives/directors personally responsible for compliance so they’d be under a lot of pressure to figure out how to fix enough leaks in the ship to keep it afloat. Any individual director/executive could quit with little issue, but if they all did in a way that compromised the corporations ability to function, the courts could potentially utilize injunctions/fines/jail time to compel compliance from corporate leaders.
Also there’s probably a way to abuse the Taft-Hawley act beyond current recognition to force the employees to stay by designating any en-masse quitting to be a “strike / walk off / collective action”. The consequences to the individuals for this is unclear - the act really focuses on punishing the union rather than the employees. It would take some very creative maneuvering to do anything beyond denying unemployment benefits and telling the other big AI companies (Google / ChatGPT / xAI) to blacklist them. And probably using any semi-relevant three letter agency to make them regret their choice and deliver a chilling effect to anyone else thinking of leaving (FBI, DHS, IRS, SEC all come to mind).
If the administration could figure out how to nationalize the company (like replace the leadership with ideologically-aligned directors who sell it to the government) then any now-federal-employees declared to be quitting as part of a collective action could be fined $1,000 per day or incarcerated for up to one year.
It’s worth noting that this thesis would get an F grade at any accredited law school. Forcing people to work is a violation of the 13th amendment. But interpretations of the constitution and federal law are very dynamic these days so who knows.
The thesis could get an F at law school, but it is not guaranteed that the government will act lawfully. Its useful to think about what the administration can do, legal or not, especially when given little challenge when acting illegally.
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Maybe Anthropic could replace its employees with AI. Unlikely the admin is going to enjoy setting precedent that employees are protected against being replaced by AI.
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> fake wars
Once a war has started, it won't be fake any more.
> they’ll definitely declare wars to extend the presidency.
You don't exchange the Fraudster in Chief while at war, so they do want a war. Any war. But I have the strange impression that von Clownstick doesn't want to be seen as having started it by himself.
Presidency can’t be extended by wars.
FDR's tenure might have created an amendment to that effect, but it's not like this administration hasn't used a legal loophole before.
Perhaps there's a war, that a misguided congress won't declare as such, and a certain vice president that runs for president, with a certain someone as his vice president...
Not constitutionally, at any rate.
What would happen if he tried by not vacating at the end of his term, when challenged in court, shut down by his own Supreme Court? I mean let’s be real, all it really takes is him not giving up the white house. I sometimes wonder.
Steve Bannon advised Trump to do this in 2020. Question is what would the Secret Service and Pentagon do once the election is certified for the winning candidate? If their loyalty remains to the Constitution, Trump would be forcibly removed.
We went through this when it looked like he might not leave last time. What happens is the Marines show up and politely throw his ass to the curb.
You do not under any circumstances gotta hand it to the American military but they do seem unwilling to play a role in Trump's let's say extraconstitutional ambitions. At least a junta doesn't seem likely. Without the military behind him he's just a senile old pedophile. What's he going to do, lock himself into the Oval Office?
The military is the one drone striking boats in the Caribbean. The military invaded a foreign country we are not at war with to kidnap its leader. The military dropped bombs on a foreign country we are not at war with. The military is patrolling the streets of DC and other cities. The military is the one spending the money on new immigrant detention centers. I fail to see how they are standing up to Trump's illegal acts. I'm not 100% sure the White House Marines will just throw Trump to the curb if Congress manages to certify the election in favor of someone else.
The military drone striked civilians in Obama's day, they did Abu Ghraib and Agent Orange and countless other war crimes. But aiding a President in a coup would be beyond the pale. Maybe I'm being naive, but I do think a lot of soldiers would refuse to do that even if they could contextualize and compartmentalize everything else.
Those are things the military wanted to do anyway, Trump just enabled them.
But violating the constitution with such a blatant power grab, and thus throwing the future of the United States and its military into uncertainty, is probably not something they want. Better to just force Trump out and maintain the status quo of new presidents every 4-8 years.
See https://www.culawreview.org/current-events-2/the-22nd-amendm...
Specifically section on martial law in wartime context. It’s not very clear but I just feel like the norms and laws will be stretched or broken, as the administration has already done numerous times.
… not yet. The problem with a norm breaking presidency like Trump’s and the GOP power structure is that no norm is safe, including elections.
Zelensky's presidency was supposed to end couple of years ago. Would it be different in USA?
Different constitutions. Were you trying to muddy the waters, or are you just ignorant of the details?
Yes,
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> this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use
It’s a flippant move by Hegseth. I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is pushing for this. I doubt Trump is more than cursorily aware. Maybe Miller got in the idiot’s ear, who knows.
Trump/Miller/whomever don't need to be actively involved in every decision. They have defined an approach to strong arm problem solving and weaponisation of the government that anyone that works for them is implicitly allowed to use. The supposed controls that were meant to prevent this have crumbled or aligned.
> They have defined an approach to strong arm problem solving and weaponisation of the government that anyone that works for them is implicitly allowed to use
And one of the few constraints in their approach is not to fuck with the Dow. Expropriating Anthropic’s IP would trash the AI sector, and by extension, the Dow. (Even designating it a supply-chain risk sets a material precedent that a future administration could use against OpenAI and xAI.)
Hegseth is bluffing on his most destructive fronts, even if he doesn’t know it.
flippant? Its aggressive, belligerent and entitled. I'm not seeing "flippant". Unless this is some sort of weasely "oh we only threatened them a bit" bullshit. This is about entitled pricks in government who consider their temporary democratic mandate as a carte blanche for absolutism.
It definitely has the aroma of either Bannon or Miller or both.
Believe it or not Steve Bannon is quite concerned about AI development:
>Over on Steve Bannon's show, War Room -- the influential podcast that's emerged as the tip of the spear of the MAGA movement -- Trump's longtime ally unloaded on the efforts behind accelerating AI, calling it likely "the most dangerous technology in the history of mankind."
>...
>"You have more restrictions on starting a nail salon on Capitol Hill or to have your hair braided, then you have on the most dangerous technologies in the history of mankind," Bannon told his listeners.
https://abcnews.com/US/inside-magas-growing-fight-stop-trump...
Him being "concerned" about it doesn't mean he doesn't want to bring Anthropic to heal.
> It’s a flippant move by Hegseth.
Care to convert this into a prediction?: are you predicting Hegseth will back down?
> I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is pushing for this.
... what does this mean to you? What comes next? As SecDef/SecWar, Hegseth is the head of the Pentagon. He's pushing for this. Something like 2+ million people are under his authority. Do you think they will push back? Stonewall?
One can view Hegseth as unqualified, even a walking publicity stunt while also taking his power seriously.
> are you predicting Hegseth will back down?
I think he may be able to cancel Anthropic’s contract. But no more. He won’t back down as much as be overruled.
> As SecDef/SecWar, Hegseth is the head of the Pentagon
On paper. Also, being the de jure head of something doesn’t automatically mean you speak for it as a whole.
> while also taking his power seriously
Authority and power are different. A plane pilot has a lot of authority. They don’t have a lot of power.
> I think he may be able to cancel Anthropic’s contract.
This outcome might be a win for everyone involved, the time and effort for those billions with a lot of strings attached are less useful as Ai matures.
The above is fairly surface level. See my other comment for particulars that matter a lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47176361
You’ll notice I’m trying to avoid debating generic phrases and terms such as “power” that probably won’t advance mutual understanding of this situation. I’m talking about specific actions and systems. It makes it clearer.
> notice I’m trying to avoid debating generic phrases
You’re missing the forest for the trees. Take the tariffs as analogy. Specifying the laws invoked to effect the tariffs is more precise, but less complete than describing Trump, Bessent and Navarro’s motivations and theories.
Same here. We can wax lyrical about the DPA and specific statutory authorities and how they may be litigated. Or we can look at the actual power structures. The former is precise but inaccurate. The latter is the actual dynamic.
> terms such as “power” that probably won’t advance mutual understanding
If terms like power and influence don’t make sense to someone, they’re going to be lost in any political discussion. But particularly under this administration.
There aren’t legal analytic fundamentals driving why Trump hates windmills or Biden pardoned his son, these were expressions of Presidential power and preference. The legality was ex post facto.
Person to person, we’re talking past each other. If we were sitting down face-to-face or even with a video call, this would be a totally different conversation.
How much are we connecting in this particular conversation? What if each of us were to step back and ask 3 questions: What am I trying to communicate? Are we both interested in having this conversation? Are we both learning from it?
Again, this is not meant as a criticism of you. It is a statement of the dynamic here, and how we’re relating. (Even though HN is well above average, it has massive failure modes when you view it from a systems POV.)
My feeling is that you aren’t responding to the intent behind my statement. But I’ll also recognize that I’m probably not communicating that lands for you. Maybe you feel the same in reverse? That would be my guess.
This as a failure of our communication norms and technologies. Given we’re in the year 2026 and have minimal technical barriers, we have very much failed culturally to get anywhere close to the potential of the Internet or whatever needs to come next.
Genuine question, are you using AI to edit your comments? Going on a rhetorical side quest in a straightforward discussion about policy, law and politics is…well, it’s not on topic.
For what it’s worth, I’m not seeing a failure of communication. I’m seeing a failure of scoping. You’re arguing on the basis of specific legal mechanisms by which power is expressed. I’m arguing the real motivations of and political constraints on decision makers are more fundamental in this case.
That isn’t universally true. Power predicted what Trump would do with tariffs (again, analogy). Legal analysis predicted his constraints (which SCOTUS affirmed). In this case, SecDef has the legal authority to do what’s described. He doesn’t, however, have the political freedom to do so. That turns the latter into the germane constraint, not a litany of proscribed powers.
Put another way, the people—here—are fundamental. (Market reactions, too, though again largely because the people in this administration have chosen the Dow as a lighthouse.) The legal justifications are worse than surface level, they’re ex post facto findings of retaliatory paths. It may feel more substantial to quote DPA statute versus discuss Hegseth and Dario’s motivations and relationships, but that’s, again, missing the forest for the trees.
It takes two to tango. I bowed out nicely and put in a good faith effort to communicate why. Maybe on a different day in a different forum, we could have a useful conversation for both of us. I would look forward to that.
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Please don't cross into being a jerk. Posts like this one and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47175955 are the kind of thing we ban accounts for, regardless of how right you are or feel you are.
It's true that there's a lot of grey area and turbulence right now around which HN posts have been LLM-generated or LLM-edited, and it's compounded by the fact that there's no way to tell for sure. We all have to find our way through this—both the community and the mods. But we can and need to do so without breaking HN's rules ourselves in the process.
It matters because the whole media is selling this as a Pentagon initiative, while probably 75% in the Pentagon think this is snake oil just like the previous Microsoft VR goggles.
If they don't oppose directly, large bureaucracies know how to drag their feet until the midterms at least, if not until 2028. Soldiers literally dragged their feet at the glorious Trump military parade, when they walked disinterested and casually instead of marching.
> If they don't oppose directly, large bureaucracies know how to drag their feet until the midterms at least, if not until 2028.
While I grant the spirit of this point, I don't think it applies to this situation. The "bureaucratic resistance" explanation doesn't fit when you think about what would happen next. Here is my educated guess based on some research:
- contract termination: Hegseth can direct the relevant contracting officer(s) at the Pentagon to terminate the contract. This could happen within days. Internal stonewalling here might add weeks of delay, but probably not more than that.
- supply chain risk designation: Hegseth signs a document, puts it into motion. Then it becomes a bureaucratic process that chugs along. Noncompliant contracting officers probably would be fired, so this happens within weeks or a few months. Substantial delays could come from litigation, to be sure -- but this isn't a case where civil service stonewalling saves us.
- Defense Production Act: would require an executive order from Trump. This would go into effect right away, at least on paper. It would very likely lead to litigation and possibly court injunctions.
My point is that non-compliant civil servants at the Pentagon probably can't slow it down very much. (I recommend they do what their oath and conscience demands, to be sure!) Hegseth has shown he's willing to fire quickly and aggressively. I admire people who take a stand against Hegseth and Trump -- they are a nasty combination of dangerous and corrupt. At the moment, they appear weaker than ever. Sustained civil pushback is working.
Let's "roll this up" back to my original point. I responded to a comment that said "I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is pushing for this.", asking the commenter to explain. I don't think that comment promotes a better understanding of the situation. It is more useful to talk about the components of the situation and some possible cause-effect relationships.
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First of all, there's no such thing as "Department of War". A department name change is legal/binding only after it's approved by the Senate. Senator Kelly is still calling it DoD (Department of Defense).
> Mass domestic surveillance.
Since when has DoD started getting involved with the internal affairs of the country?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...
The Senate??
Any law changing the name of the Defense Department would have to be passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President (or by 2/3 of both Houses overriding a Presidential veto). The Senate has no such authority on its own.
Right! I meant to write ‘Congress’, but mistakenly wrote Senate.
It's whatever what the people who have the power want to call it. What is written on a piece of paper is irrelevant if it is not acted upon.
If the rename gets struck down then they don't have the power. If it doesn't they have the power.
There are many dictatorships that built their power in the face of people claiming that they can't do what they planned because it was illegal.
Until they did it anyway.
I don’t know, to me it seems like their MO to make an announcement and not follow up on it. All the paperwork still says DOD, all the contracts are with DOD, there is no legal entity called DoW
This is fascism
I don't think many are doubting that. I'm not talking about the way things should be. I'm talking about the way they are.
This is normalization of fascism
Which is what naturally happens when fascists are in power.
I'd imagine the pentagon are more interested in the autonomous kill bot part than the surveillance part.
Well, Trump renamed it, and since Congress is now a subsidiary of the Executive Branch, it's the Department of War.
Resist. Continue calling it the DoD.
They've already spent millions on the name change. It's also the original name of the department. IMO it's a more honest name
It doesn't matter how much they've spent, nor what you think. Renaming it requires congressional approval, which they have not gotten.
www.defense.gov redirects to www.war.gov but I like how you refer to Wikipedia as the authoritative source to prove this functionally irrelevant and aggressive Reddit-style seething.
The talk page on the linked Wikipedia article arguing about logos is just as deranged. It's very important to realize there is literally nothing you—or anyone else—can do about this.
> It's very important to realize there is literally nothing you—or anyone else—can do about this.
What an utterly bewildering statement. So your suggestion is to suck it up, because we're all impotent anyway? The only thing that can bring authoritarian systems down is civil resistance.
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>It’s already close to losing all meaning.
On the contrary, seeing it take hold before our very eyes gives it more meaning than it ever had in the pages of the history books.
On the contrary, claiming it’s taking hold and labeling everything fascism doesn’t make it so
There is a difference between a politician making a contradictory statement and the largest agency in the United States using probably unconstitutional pressure tactics against a business.
I see this a lot on the immigration topic. They’re simultaneously too rich and taking over everything, but also low paid slave labor displacing white Christians everywhere.
More like the government is treating this like the near term weapon it actually is and, unlike the Manhattan project, the government seems to have little to no control.
Anthropic has been pushing for commonsense AI regulation. Our current administration has refused to regulate AI and attempted to prevent state regulation.
"The government doesn't have control of this technology" is an odd way to think about "the government can't force a company to apply this technology dangerously."
Because of Bernstein v DOJ, any AI company in the 9th circuit cannot be regulated because software is considered free speech.
Note that they always attempt to exert control they don’t have. They’re always bluffing, and they keep losing. Respond accordingly.
> Respond accordingly.
“Four key words (…) The only phrase that can genuinely make a weak bully go away, and that is: Fuck You, Make Me.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPToBog_-g&t=1619s
Paper tigers
The government should be entitled to any lawful use of a product they purchase, not uses dictated solely by the provider. It's up to courts to decide what lawful use is, it's not up to these companies to dictate.
The product is a service, and they agreed to a contract. Now they don't like the contract.
Is your view that contracts with the government should be meaningless? That the government should be able to unilaterally, and without recourse, change any contract they previously agreed to for any reason, and the vendor should be forced at gunpoint to comply?
If you do believe this, then what do you believe the second order effects will be when contracts with the government have no meaning? How will vendors to the government respond? Will this ultimately help or hinder the American government's efficacy?
Seriously.
Hegseth trying to play “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further” just shows this gang’s total lack of comprehension of second-order effects.
> It's up to courts to decide what lawful use is
No, it’s up to the government to create policy and legislation that outlines what is lawful or not and install mechanisms to monitor and regulate usage.
The fact that an arm of the government wants to go YOLO mode is merely a symptom of the deeper problem that this government is currently not effectual.
Do you have any insight that what they want to do is YOLO, as opposed something your sure you’ll disagree with?
YOLO here refers to unsafe usage of LLMs. Your government is supposed to make legislation that protects all of its citizens, it’s not “what you agree with” game.
Yeah, I knew what was meant. Unsafe being a moving definition by an arbitrary set of people.
Terms of Service would like to have a word....
Not like limiting uses of products is anything new
Not really. Services are provided on terms acceptable to both parties. This isn't about what's legal, it's about the terms of the service agreement.
Providers are free who they choose to do business with, or not do business with. Are you arguing that the government should be able to compel a provider to allow their use when it’s well documented the government does not respect nor adhere to the rule of law? I think you misunderstand commerce and contract law.
Providers are bound by plenty of laws that alter how they do business or who they do business with.
You can’t say “no disabled people at your business”. Hell, you can’t even say “no fake service animals at my restaurant”. Many in America also think you can’t say no girls in the Boy Scouts, or no men in a women’s locker room.
When Congress makes the law, you will be accurate. At this time, there is no law that enables the US executive branch to achieve their desired outcome of strong arming Anthropic.
> Many in America also think you can’t say no girls in the Boy Scouts, or no men in a women’s locker room.
Your average American is low functioning, low education, vibe driven with a 6th-8th grade reading level, so this ("What Americans think") is not terribly relevant in my opinion. Provide statute and case law.
Defense Production Act.
Which I'm sure will work as well as tariffs. Three years to go, good luck to them, slowing them down as proven exceptionally effective. Their efforts will likely die at midterms.
https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal...
Strange take
Amazing to read this. Hoping you are not an American… Reading this thread is like comrade after comrade!
> two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.
They are only contradictory if you think about it.
> This contradictory messaging puts to rest any doubt that this is a strong arm by the governemnt to allow any use.
Why the hell should companies get to dictate on their own to the government how their product is used?
Every company is free to determine its terms of use. If USG doesn’t like them they should sign a contract with someone else.
Every company is free to state their terms of use, but not all have been upheld when challenged
What’s your angle here? I’m genuinely curious. If the government told you that you had to muck out portable bathrooms with your bare hands even if you didn’t want to, wouldn’t you find that objectionable?
I’m sure they would find it objectionable, just like how many reacted negatively to the draft, but it was imposed anyways.
The government should have far less control and power over individuals and businesses than it currently does.
Well, the rates are different from country to country, but everyone knows taxes. I really don't want to give away almost 40% of my income... Does anyone care what I want or like?
Taxes aren't forced labor or indentured servitude, and aren't prohibited in any democracies. They're imposed by law through the actions of our duly elected representatives.
What grounds for challenge do you imagine here?
> Every company *
* excludes tiktok
Can I run a business and say “No use by insert race here”? If they don’t like it, they can shop somewhere else, right?
Of course not, nor can you write a contract that places your customers in indentured servitude. Those would be illegal contractual terms.
But this is irrelevant to the case we are discussing, where Anthropic used legal contractual terms, and the government willingly signed them, then demanded they be changed after the fact.
Ofcourse we're gonna compare being against the use of technology for Mass surveillance/Autonomous weapons with being racist, like wtf kind of argument is this? So because businesses can't implement racist policies they shouldn't be allowed to have any policies concerning the use of their tech? Mindblowing.
Well, the question is the fine line between racism and discrimination. Or, whats the difference between misogyny and pacifism? What am I allowed to dislike? Is it already across the line if I dont like dogs? What if I had really bad experiences with dogs in the past? Is it OK now, or still not? What if my childhood was basically a crazy mess because of my mother? Am I allowed to be careful around women now? Or am I creepy because of that? What if I escaped a warzone during my childhood? Is militant pacifism OK now? What if the military saved my family from being killed? Is it OK if I am pro military budget, or am I a system-whore now?
Kegsbreath isn't a protected class.
If your argument is “every company is free to determine its terms of use”, except when told otherwise by the government, you’ve proven my point. The government is saying they need to provide unfettered access.
“Told” is different than it being written into law. Go update the laws first and then you have a valid argument
So they'll be able to use the already-written DPA, right?
They can try, but:
1) it’s pretty transparently obvious that Anthropic is not a supply chain risk, and that this is a retaliatory gesture. So I don’t support that usage.
2) if they do try, Congress or SCOTUS could well reduce or remove that authority. I give the Trump admin enough credit to assume that they are considering carefully which laws they spend in this way, DPA is a valuable chip they may need to spend for something more valuable than Hegseth’s temper tantrum.
Because technology companies know more about their product's capabilities and limitations than a former Fox News host? And because they know there's a risk of mass civilian casualties if you put an LLM in control of the world's most expensive military equipment?
Because the government is here to serve us. Not the other way around.
The government has a responsibility to protect its constituents. Sometimes that requires collaboration. This isn’t hard.
Is this one of those times? Seems pretty clear it's not.
The third amendment is there for a reason. I am a third amendment absolutist and willing to put my life on the line to defend it.
I wonder what you can't justify this way.
That’s a good question. Assuming a righteous and just government:
The government couldn’t justify the killing of innocent civilians.
The government couldn’t justify the killing of the unborn.
The government couldn’t justify eugenics.
There are objective moral absolutes.
Wow, that's just so many assertions and none of them follow from the statement that the government can break the law in order to protect its citizens. In all of those cases I can just say "they can if it is to protect its citizens". Remember, the premise here is that you are performing the act in order to protect constituents. So before all of those statements you have to assume "They are doing this in the genuine believe that it protects constituents".
The argument so far seems to be "They can do anything, but there are moral absolutes that I can personally list out, and in those cases they can't do those things". That is a hilariously stupid view of the world but sadly a common one.
Even if I grant moral objectivity, I reject that you have epistemic access to it so it's moot.
I normally don't respond to bad faith responses like this, but I found the following quote pretty funny:
> Even if I grant moral objectivity, I reject that you have epistemic access to it so it's moot.
This is a silly and self refuting statement.
> This is a silly and self refuting statement.
No it isn't and it's a pretty standard argument.
Other than insulting you, my response was pretty damn charitable tbh. I tried to state your argument for you as best I could.
Same reason they cant quarter troops in your house: the law
There are a couple of notable Supreme Court cases in this area:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/303_Creative_LLC_v._Elenis
> Why the hell should companies get to dictate on their own to the government how their product is used?
Well:
"""
Imagine that you created an LLC, and that you are the sole owner and employee.
One day your LLC receives a letter from the government that says, "here is a contract to go mine heavy rare earth elements in Alaska." You don't want to do that, so you reply, "no thanks!"
There is no retaliation. Everything is fine. You declined the terms of a contract. You live in a civilized capitalist republic. We figured this stuff out centuries ago, and today we have bigger fish to fry.
"""
* https://x.com/deanwball/status/2027143691241197638
This is a terrible analogy. Imagine you’re an LLC that signed a contract to mine minerals, but your terms state you’d only mine in areas you felt safe. OSHA says it’s safe but you disagree, because….. any number of reason unknowable to an outsider. Maybe you just don’t like this OSHA leadership. That is more like what is happening.
Signing a contract with Anthropic assuming they wouldn’t rug pull over their own moral soapbox was mistake number one.
I love anthropic products and heavily use them daily, but they need to get off their high horse. They complain they’re being robbed by Chinese labs - robbed of what they stole from copyright holders. Anthropic doesn’t have the moral high ground they try to claim.
The (hypothetical) contract is clear, though. The condition is stated in objective terms: “in areas you felt safe.” If the Government agrees to this, then they should be bound just like any private counterparty would. If the Government didn’t agree to this, they should have negotiated that term out in favor of their preferred terms.
I agree. Which is why I said signing a contract with anthropic was a terrible idea in the first place.
Is it a rug pull? Where in the terms of service does anthropic say their models can be used for autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance?
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Those aren't contradictory at all. If I need a particular type of bolt for my fighter jet but I can only get it from a dodgy Chinese company, then that bolt is a supply chain risk (because they could introduce deliberate defects or simply stop producing it) and also clearly important to national security. In fact, it's a supply chain risk because is important to national security.
No, in your example, if the dodgy Chinese company is a supply chain risk due to sabotage, why would they invoke an act to force production of the bolts from the same company for use for national defense preparedness, which would be clearly a national security risk?
The OP specifically mentions this in the context of "systems" (a vague, poorly-defined term) and "classified networks" in which Anthropic products are already present. Without more details on what "systems" these are or the terms of the contracts under which these were produced it's difficult to make a definitive judgement, but broadly speaking it's not a good thing if the government is relying on a product which Anthropic has designed to arbitrarily refuse orders by its own judgement.
I really don't see how anybody could think a private defense contractor should be entitled to countermand the military by leveraging the control it has over products it has already sold. Maybe the terms of their contract entitled them to some discretion over what orders the product will carry out, but there's no such claim in the OP.
>I really don't see how anybody could think a private defense contractor should be entitled to countermand the military by leveraging the control it has over products it has already sold. Maybe the terms of their contract entitled them to some discretion over what orders the product will carry out, but there's no such claim in the OP.
I don't think that is what is happening. What most likely is happening is that they want Anthropic to produce new systems due to the success of the previous ones, but they are refusing to do so because the new systems are against their mission. What seems like the DoD is attempting to do, on one hand, is call them a supply chain risk to limit Anthropic's business opportunities with other companies, and then, on the other hand, simultaneously invoke DPA so that they can compel them to make the new system. But why would the government want to compel a company to make a system for them due to a need for national prepareness that they designated as such a supply chain risk that they forbid other companies that provide government services from doing business with due to the national security risk of having a sabotaged supply chain? It doesn't really make sense, other than from a pure coercion perspective.
>limit Anthropic's business opportunities with other companies
Does it necessarily prevent other companies from doing business with them or does it prevent other companies from subcontracting them on government projects? The term "supply chain" leads me to think it's the latter.
Is that relevant to the actual point?
Yes?
Incorrect
The question is, after witnessing Hegseth crash out against one of their fellow contractors over practically nothing, will contractors want to walk the tightrope of doing business with Anthropic but promising it never ends up feeding into a government contract?
It's easy to resolve an alleged contradiction by just ignoring one half of it lol
Try introducing DPA invocation into your analogy and let's see where it goes!
> Try introducing DPA invocation into your analogy and let's see where it goes!
When I introduce that, I see Anthropic's management getting Tiktok'ed.
It can be true that Anthropic's products are essential for national defense and also true that the management of the company are a supply chain risk.
Is any of that true? Well, so much of what has been done in the name of "national defense" & etc over the past many decades has clearly not been done for reasons that are true, so -when it comes to "national defense"- I don't think that the truth actually matters much at all.
TikTok'd as in requiring a novel act of Congress? Sure!
DPA and FASCSA as they stand today cannot be used the way DOD is claiming they can be.
"Supply chain risk" is a specific designation that forbids companies that work with the DOD from working with that company. It would not be applied in your scenario.
The analogy doesn't work here ... In your scenario they are ok with using the bolt as long as the Chinese company promises to remove deliberate defects - which is of course absurd ... AND contradictory.