Pete Hegseth has threatened to cancel $200m contract unless it is given unfettered access to Claude model

Anthropic said Thursday it “cannot in good conscience” comply with a demand from the Pentagon to remove safety precautions from its artificial intelligence model and grant the US military unfettered access to its AI capabilities.

The Department of Defense had threatened to cancel a $200m contract and deem Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a designation with serious financial implications, if the company did not comply with the request by Friday.

Chief executive Dario Amodei said in a statement that the threats from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, would not change the company’s position, and that he hoped Hegseth would “reconsider”.

  • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    [immediately spins up a new company with no issues, a gov contract, and a data-sharing partnership agreement with Anthropic]

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    22 hours ago

    It’s almost like the usa is very corrupt, carrying a big money stick and bullying people with it.

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      To summarize, “Using AI for mass spying is fine so long as it’s not Americans being spied on. Using AI to murder with no oversight or accountability is also fine, but only when it’s not Americans.”

      This is not the win that people are making it out to be. This is heinous.

      • NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip
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        8 hours ago

        "Using AI to murder with no oversight or >accountability is also fine, but only when it’s not >Americans.”

        I read the whole statement. That was not what they said. They said it might be a future application of the technology, but right now the technology isn’t ready or safe enough for this.

        Before LLMs, there were already machine learning algorithms and software to do automatic targeting. I don’t understand why we would even want to employ these tools trained to generically do anything okayish vs a highly specialized tool for this kind of application. The most exciting and useful applications of AI are highly specialized and trained applications: best cancer screening, alpha fold, automatic targeting, etc. Why the fuck would you push to use Claude for this anyway?!

      • realitista@lemmus.org
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        1 day ago

        I mean it’s a lot better than anything I expected, especially under this administration, that’s for sure. Most other companies are rolling over to everything.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        USA has absolutely zero respect for the rights of people in or from other countries.
        This was also evident in how Obama explained the “balance” of US surveillance.
        It is also evident in how USA spies on allied top politicians. The might makes right mentality in USA is disgusting.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          USA has absolutely zero respect for the rights of people in or from other countries.

          Your statement isn’t wrong, but you could substitute any powerful nation in the place of “USA” today or throughout history and the statement would be correct too. Geopolitics is really really ugly if you peal back the thin veneer of diplomacy on top.

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            16 hours ago

            Almost like it is a whole bunch of people who consider rape an extension of power looking at how they can put themselves atop the pyramid.

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              Rape as a method of power is a tiny tiny tiny part/tool of geopolitics at the nation state level. Almost too small mention. The same original statement is the rationale for colonization of the Carrebean/Americas/Africa by European powers in the 15th century and beyond as just an example.

        • greybeard@feddit.online
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          23 hours ago

          As an American, it has always been obvious to me that the government thinks rights are only for people in the country. Snoden’s whistle blowing made it clear that it isn’t just US. Lots of other countries act the same way, and the US government is using that to allow them to spy domestically too.

      • HermitBee@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        To be fair, if I were saying “no” to the Department of War, I’d also want to come across as an all-American toadying suckup.

  • daannii@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Just give them a fake broken version of it and say “we are still working on some of the bugs”.

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Haters so far behind at this point they don’t understand how they’re getting absolutely fucked by ai agent swarms.

        An individual agent is stupid, a million of them can get a job done that is otherwise impossible.

        They’re being used for everything from marketing to propaganda at this point, and most people still think they suck because they can be tricked or fail basic questions.

        You can trick humans too, doesn’t mean they can’t do impressive things as well, especially in large groups.

        • ATPA9@feddit.org
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          1 day ago

          Ah yes, the impossible task of creating a barely functioning C compiler…

          • shadow_wanker@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Only marketing people are claiming they are good at everything. They can suck at things like creating C compilers and still be really good at other things. One thing they are really good at is impersonating people online and swaying public opinion on things. If you think you don’t have to worry about that because they suck at creating C compilers, then i’ve got news for you.

          • realitista@lemmus.org
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            1 day ago

            Impossible for me. I’m pretty impressed with it’s coding abilities. Yes humans are still better but they can do quite a lot now.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The funny thing about fascism is that they are so mentally ill, immature, and authoritarian that they self-own constantly. The traits that make them fascist also render them completely unable to create; only steal, co-opt, terrorize, and destroy.

      If they nationalize or criminalize Anthropic, they will lose most of the brains that made it competitive, and be left with yet another failed fascist endeavor. It’s in their best interests to compel companies with a lighter touch.

      But most Americans still do not understand the only way out of fascism is by physically removing the fascist cancer, so I hope they do try to nationalize Anthropic and continue the last year of accelerationism. Losing everything is the only scenario where Americans will revolt against the fascist dictatorship, and that must happen before they have fully autonomous drone killbots to mass murder all who oppose them.

    • GuyFawkesV@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Would YOU trust Kegsbreath not to use it anyways and then try and shift the blame when it goes haywire? Perhaps you should go watch Robocop (80’s version) to see how that works out?

  • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    “Not without additional massive investment into our research department so we can responsibly work on countermeasures.”