The Department of War has stated they will only contract with AI companies who accede to “any lawful use” and remove safeguards in the cases mentioned above. 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.
Regardless, these threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.
It is the Department’s prerogative to select contractors most aligned with their vision. But given the substantial value that Anthropic’s technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they reconsider. Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters—with our two requested safeguards in place. Should the Department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions. Our models will be available on the expansive terms we have proposed for as long as required.
…because every now and again, for the briefest of moments, one them shows themselves not to be run by entirely evil, lecherous humps?
Blink and you (or the shareholders) might miss it.
Don’t buy the hype. They’re not acting in good conscience, they’ve just weighed the pros and cons and decided that the PR hit isn’t worth it.
I can dream, Harold!
Having said that…let’s see how it shakes out. Sometimes, good things happen for good reasons.
When a CEO tells you who he is, believe him the first time.
I thought we had all learned this lesson with Elon Musk, who also pretended to be the good guy. We’ve already got a ton of red flags about Dario Amodei.