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Comment by pamcake | Hacker News Reader

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.

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What happens on Friday?

Friday is the deadline that the secretary of defense, Hegseth, gave Anthropic for complying with the "allow the military version of claude to do mass surveillance and autonomous killing" order.

Secretary of war

I suspect when given contradictory options maybe there’s a their or fourth option. Move to the moon!

The deadline given to them by Hegseth runs out.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened Anthropic, saying officials could invoke powers that would allow the government to force the artificial intelligence firm to share its novel technology in the name of national security if it does not agree by Friday to terms favorable to the military"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/24/pentago...

https://archive.is/ln5M0

Isn't this entirely theather? I'm sure Musk's XAI would have no qualms about working with the Department That Used To Be Called Department Of Defense.

Hell, there's a significant sharing of people between them and SpaceX, meaning the company's full of people with security clearances working on defense contracts.

Anthropic also seems to have dropped their safety pledge in a matter that I'm sure is completely unrelated.

"Isn't this entirely theather? I'm sure Musk's XAI would have no qualms about working with the Department That Used To Be Called Department Of Defense."

Sure, but Claude seems to be considered better and the US military does not want something second class.

The could shut down the company and `rm -rf *` all their assets, no?

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.

If DoD seizes the IP, the issue is they will need the cooperation of their scientists at least in the short term, if they want it to remain a fronter model. The labor angle isn't entirely guaranteed though the white collar worker has very little spine in this country.

> DoD seizes the IP

Almost certainly not on the table. If Hegseth did this he’d crash the market. That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

> That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

We've been saying this about many policies of this administration, only to be sorely disappointed.

> We've been saying this about many policies of this administration, only to be sorely disappointed

I'm not saying it's off the table completely, particularly with Hegseth, who is an insecure idiot. But the choices once it's enacted are (a) Trump ordering Hegseth to stop fucking around or (b) a market crash handing Democrats full control of Congress.

> That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

So you're saying it's highly likely then?

Like when seizing 10% of Intel crashed the market? This isn't exactly the same situation, but I really don't think it's safe to assume that this will be the issue on which the business community will grow a spine.

You might be surprised. When Harry Truman tried to nationalize US steel, it created massive pushback (bad for democracy imo, but the business community defends its interests to the teeth—though the circumstance is he wanted to advance the korean war, which was in the business community's interests).

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/truman-orders-se...

Nationalizing predicate companies is often seen as a step towards centralization.

> That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

Do not underestimate Hegseth's stupidity. He's completely unqualified for the job he has and is way out of his depth. Ditto for many others in this administration.

yeah, but the question I'd be asking myself is,

Hey, so what you are saying is that unless we use the AI that we control, to take control of the mass surveillance and autonomous drone strike systems, you will force us to take control of these systems?

I mean, did H just Open Clawed the entire US military?

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