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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
Why the hell should companies get to dictate on their own to the government how their product is used?