Back during the Iraq war days and government overreach into privacy violations, the tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment.
That has all changed today, except for Anthropic. You think Apple is going to stand up to an unlawful DoJ demand these days? Hell no. Tim Cook has lit Apple's reputation on fire. I've been a super dedicated Apple user for 25 years, but I'm heading for the exits now. All that trust has been burned.
Stay strong Anthoproc, you are seemingly the only really large SV company with any principles and backbone. I won't forget what happens here, either way it goes.
I'd hold off making that call on Anthropic here until at least after Friday. I'm not sure if persisting that "constructive dialogue is taking place in good faith" and saying nothing else in public signifies backbone considering preceding and consecutive public statements by government officials... It certainly doesn't instil confidence in honesty or transparency.
I mean they got threatened with the Defense Production Act. Firmly standing their ground without an inch of give may backfire spectacularly too, if the DoD injects itself into model training.
I think they pretty clearly demonstrated good faith and where it ends up is a tactical choice I'm not in a great position to judge.
Tech companies in the early 2000s were nerds who grew up in an environment where tech was for losers and a waste of time. A lot of those people had strong values and did it because they enjoyed it and wanted other nerds like themselves to have cool stuff.
Now companies are dominated by MBAs and nepotism. Most join tech for a quick cash out. Having values is seen as a loss, because if you can get a billion, why not? You're invincible if you're rich and none of these downsides apply to you. Screw everyone else. They could just be a billionaire themselves if they don't like it.
As a result, zoomers today meme about people like the unabomber making a good point.
“ the tech companies were on the side of the American people”
They are on the side of making money. And the bigger they are, the more pressure. The big tech companies are now so big that they can’t afford to leave any money in the table if they want to keep their growth rates.
Some tools go out of their way to whine piteously if they can't find Ubuntu in /etc/issue et al. We were using Mint, just got tired of messing with installation scripts every time an upgrade came. And as the transition to Linux accelerates, it's just more convenient to stick with whatever the vendor wants.
Bullied into doing surveillance? Brother a large part of the tech companies valuations are built on how well they allow the government to do surveillance if the governement wants. They arent victims being bullied, they all knew this day would come ajd most were happy about it
As an aside, why is it not a law that the government can't pay another entity to do something it's not allowed to do itself, without a warrant? I'm thinking about geo data from mobile apps.
If they give in I will cancel all Anthropic subscriptions and never use anything created by them again. Recent versions of Claude were getting shitty anyway, I could go without it.
Totally agree with the statement: Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance.
I would personally add "bullied, coerced and/or gaslighted into doing surveillance".
I don't understand why the US government is doing this though. Wouldn't it be much easier to do use some of the already passed laws on foreign intelligence to open a surveillance data pipeline? You know, like PRISM.
I mean, this is inconsistent with the previous M.O., and highly unusual.
I also feel very conflicted to suddenly have to "defend Anthropic", a company that has been systematically doing evil things (destabilizing markets, promoting misleading media campaings, etc). I don't want to defend those guys.
Can I just dislike both the US military and Anthropic at the same time, and say there are no good guys here?
Back during the Iraq war days and government overreach into privacy violations, the tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment.
That has all changed today, except for Anthropic. You think Apple is going to stand up to an unlawful DoJ demand these days? Hell no. Tim Cook has lit Apple's reputation on fire. I've been a super dedicated Apple user for 25 years, but I'm heading for the exits now. All that trust has been burned.
Stay strong Anthoproc, you are seemingly the only really large SV company with any principles and backbone. I won't forget what happens here, either way it goes.
I'd hold off making that call on Anthropic here until at least after Friday. I'm not sure if persisting that "constructive dialogue is taking place in good faith" and saying nothing else in public signifies backbone considering preceding and consecutive public statements by government officials... It certainly doesn't instil confidence in honesty or transparency.
I mean they got threatened with the Defense Production Act. Firmly standing their ground without an inch of give may backfire spectacularly too, if the DoD injects itself into model training.
I think they pretty clearly demonstrated good faith and where it ends up is a tactical choice I'm not in a great position to judge.
Tech companies in the early 2000s were nerds who grew up in an environment where tech was for losers and a waste of time. A lot of those people had strong values and did it because they enjoyed it and wanted other nerds like themselves to have cool stuff.
Now companies are dominated by MBAs and nepotism. Most join tech for a quick cash out. Having values is seen as a loss, because if you can get a billion, why not? You're invincible if you're rich and none of these downsides apply to you. Screw everyone else. They could just be a billionaire themselves if they don't like it.
As a result, zoomers today meme about people like the unabomber making a good point.
“ the tech companies were on the side of the American people”
They are on the side of making money. And the bigger they are, the more pressure. The big tech companies are now so big that they can’t afford to leave any money in the table if they want to keep their growth rates.
All our Intel Macs are getting repurposed for Ubuntu LTS - whatever version which supports our CAD tools.
Recommend Mint instead. Flatpak instead of snap.
Some tools go out of their way to whine piteously if they can't find Ubuntu in /etc/issue et al. We were using Mint, just got tired of messing with installation scripts every time an upgrade came. And as the transition to Linux accelerates, it's just more convenient to stick with whatever the vendor wants.
Hate to break the news but they might not be good guys either - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145963
(Dropping safety pledge)
Do you think it's possible the two are related?
It's obvious that they are.
The best thing the company could do if they want to stick to principles is not be based in the US.
They over did the safety aspect in my opinion.
Bullied into doing surveillance? Brother a large part of the tech companies valuations are built on how well they allow the government to do surveillance if the governement wants. They arent victims being bullied, they all knew this day would come ajd most were happy about it
Maybe tech companies should try a bit harder to not centralize the world's information, unencrypted, on servers they control.
Amen.
But then they can't make their billions selling our data.
oops accidental surveillance machine
As an aside, why is it not a law that the government can't pay another entity to do something it's not allowed to do itself, without a warrant? I'm thinking about geo data from mobile apps.
It’s due to the third party doctrine, a Supreme Court precedent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
Give up social media, make the man do it the old fashion way.
Agree but a terrifyingly large number of tech companies have garbage security so the bullying is often unnecessary.
Tech companies shouldn’t be able to do surveillance.
Hegseth & Co. has Grok but they actually want Claude. Elon hates Anthropic and.. well.. Hegseth has the power to put the hurt on them.
Anthropic opened themselves to this disaster by making that first contract with the military.
I don’t want them to lose this battle but it’s also one they brought upon themselves by stepping into that arena.
Neither should banks, but that ship has sailed.
Imagine a world where businesses considered the morality of their decisions instead of just maximizing profits
If they give in I will cancel all Anthropic subscriptions and never use anything created by them again. Recent versions of Claude were getting shitty anyway, I could go without it.
All other foundation model providers already caved (OpenAI, Google).
Well, it seems they don’t need that much bullying. They are absolutely happy to contribute if it means favors, no tariffs, more profit etc
Related:
Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140734
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47142587
Totally agree with the statement: Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance.
I would personally add "bullied, coerced and/or gaslighted into doing surveillance".
I don't understand why the US government is doing this though. Wouldn't it be much easier to do use some of the already passed laws on foreign intelligence to open a surveillance data pipeline? You know, like PRISM.
I mean, this is inconsistent with the previous M.O., and highly unusual.
I also feel very conflicted to suddenly have to "defend Anthropic", a company that has been systematically doing evil things (destabilizing markets, promoting misleading media campaings, etc). I don't want to defend those guys.
Can I just dislike both the US military and Anthropic at the same time, and say there are no good guys here?
"Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance for the govt."
FTFY
They're going to spy on you regardless.