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Comment by wolframhempel | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

You may be right, but whatever happens with OpenAI and the military, I'd rather not be personally contributing money towards it.

Are you paying taxes?

Not to the USA.

I never really understood people's need to post these cynical doomer posts. "Things can't be perfect so don't bother doing anything ever I am so smart".

Will a few dozen people canceling their accounts change anything? Probably not, but at least we know that we're not actively giving our money to Sam Altman.

There's not a lot in the world that any of us have control over. Most of us aren't billionaires who can buy a government. Really the only variable we have any amount of freedom with is how we spend our money.

As a former soldier and as someone who married into a family from the now russian occupied parts of Ukraine i feel that this is a great mindset, but also somewhat of a luxury believe. I agree that ideally we'd stand up to aggression and weapon production and that all other citizens around the world would do the same, and we'd live in peaceful equilibrium. But they don't- and so our best bet is to be so strong that no one wants to attack us. For that, we can't leave the cutting edge of military technology to others. This mindset used to be anathema to the tech community, but then briefly changed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine as people briefly understood that there are in fact aggressive actors in the world and war might come to us. But it seems we went back on that.

Do you understand that this news is not universally disliked and some people are happy to keep their subscriptions?

And this thread like most of reddit just becomes a hive-mind of me-too comments. Downvoting anything that goes against the common theme into [flagged].

I didn't downvote anyone here and I really only ever downvote outright spam or shitposting.

> And this thread like most of reddit just becomes a hive-mind of me-too comments.

Yeah it's a "hive mind", a bunch of very technical people who actually kind of understand computers and the implications of OpenAI's actions don't like it. It's so "hive mind" for people who actually understand why something is bad to think it's bad. You're right to call that out because people should instead just have different opinions so they can be different.

OpenAI step in to work with defence department on stuff so questionable that another company took a public stance to distance itself from?

Myself, I’ve always “followed the money” when the current administration has taken public positions on things from media company mergers to data centres etc. So a bit of me wonders how much of the “anthropic is a threat to national security” is genuine and how much is about getting another company into lucrative defence contracts instead?

Trump family has major investments in data centers etc and is heavy benefiting from OpenAI footprint but they recently declined an investment opportunity in anthropic citing it’s political leanings

This administration has relentlessly demonstrated they will let no law or human right get in the way of their accumulation of unchecked power.

He tried to take congress's power through impoundment but not even his hand picked SCOTUS would permit that.

So instead he kidnapped a president, invaded Iran, bombed Nigeria, had masked unaccountables shoot people in the streets, threatens to seize elections and covers up crimes by flushing enough evidence down toilets that they need plumbers.

Along with that, defunding science, medical research, pulling funding from top tier universities, tearing up international treaties, threatening to invade Canada and Denmark all while building 24 camps and defunding pbs.

He runs MLMs and cryptocurrency pump and dumps from a demolished Whitehouse where he peddles trinkets from his online store, sells pardons, and tried to orchestrate a coup.

This is a Whitehouse that uses the 14 words, makes references to 1488, puts out AI deep fakes and fraudulent photographs as press releases that read like North Korean propaganda. One that defunds the weather service because of conspiracy theories.

One that shuts down battery research, puts mercury in the air, permits water pollution, and relentlessly defunds and dismantles powerful growth sectors that are driving the economies of our global competitors.

This administration both sabotaged the importing of basic components used in domestic manufacturing through exorbitant tariffs and the production of domestic alternatives through relentless litigation and threats.

There is no excuse whatsoever for empowering them.

It's a relentless, exhaustive, strategic sabotaging of the american economy and basic civil government; one that Osama Bin Laden could never have even dreamed of.

If any replies accuse me of being a democrat (I'm not) or try to deflect, I will not engage.

What does domestic surveillance have to do with national security objectives or keeping denizens of the U.S. safe (that is, the ones who are not lucky enough to be in its cosseted ruling class)?

True, but I'm talking about the autonomous AI weapon question

Unfortunately it's the same people asking for both, so you should be wondering at whom those weapons are really intended to be pointed.

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