The quotes from those articles (short passages?) are
> He recalls meeting President Trump at an AI and energy summit in Pennsylvania, "where he and I had a good conversation about US leadership in AI,"
> "Unfortunately, I think 'No bad person should ever benefit from our success' is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on... This is a real downside and I'm not thrilled about it."
> "Throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions. I've seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too." (from a researcher at Anthropic)
I don't think that any of this is particularly damning. Even if you don't like the president, I don't think it's bad to say that you had a good conversation with them. I believe the CEO of NVIDIA has said similar. The Saudis invest in many public US companies, does that make those companies less trust worthy? What about taking private capital from institutions such as State Street and Blackrock? The last quote seems like more of a reflection than an allegation. It read to me as a desire to do better.
I'm all for not trusting companies, but Anthropic seems to be one of the few that's trying to do good. I think we've seen a lot worse from many of their competitors.
The problem is this:
> The Saudis invest in many public US companies, does that make those companies less trust worthy?
It does. If Anthropic takes money from the middle east that might be the reason, why they cannot work for the Pentagon. Simply because the Pentagon works together with the Israeli Forces and middle east investors might not like this. So Anthropic has to decide to either take a lot of money from the middle east, or work for the Pentagon.
Of course the problem goes much deeper than just Anthropic. I don't understand why taking money from dictatorships doesn't count as money laundering in our society. Because basically this is dirty money, generated by slavery and forceful suppression of people. We should forbid all companies to take this kind of dirty money. But because we don't do that at the moment companies who don't take this dirty money will have a disadvantage against companies that do. And because companies are all about money, in the end they are basically forced to act against their good intentions, just to survive.
We as society have to stop this. We must make sure, that companies who are not taking dirty money survive the competition. My idea would be to extend the rules for money laundering to all countries that are dictatorships. But there might be other ideas, to level the playing field between companies, so we as society can help them to make the right decision.
X/xAI has received billions in investment from the royal families of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar.
Who hasn't taken money from the Middle East?
So do you check the ownership of every public company you might interact with?