> I do not think this is somehow a 3D chess move by Anthropic. They are not masterminds, even if they'd really like to be.

They should have consulted their own models about the ramifications and unintended consequences; based on their actions over the past few months I think it is safe to say that the models are smarter than the decision-makers at anthropic, lol. I know the models are smarter than I am and even I could have told them that they were taking paths, FUD for example, that would lead to grief.

they probably did. either they subsequently ignored the models' suggestions, or the model sycophantically gassed up their bad decisions, or the models are not very good at persuasion/spin/politics.