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Comment by siren2026 | Hacker News Reader

siren2026

That's actually exactly how I feel about Anthropic.

They play such a PR game, trying really really hard to be seen as the good guys. It feels as another satirical episode of Silicon Valley. It's very clear they are all money and power motivated while also pretending to do all of this for the good of humanity. I have rarely seen that level of hypocrisy and cultish behavior from leadership and employees there.

I would honestly just prefer if they were honest about being power and money hungry instead of playing that game of AI Safety.

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The funny thing is it’s so transparent. Like… is that the point? They want us to know how dodgy they are, kind of as a “** you”?

Often the point of propaganda is not to convince, it’s to demoralise.

On the other hand I could also believe that they live in such a bubble they genuinely don’t understand how it comes across. Add in a non-negligible amount of neurodivergence and maybe that’s the simplest explanation

> On the other hand I could also believe that they live in such a bubble they genuinely don’t understand how it comes across

Yes, at least until ~6 months ago that was my reading too. I felt they were part of the EA/less wrong crowd. Earnest, convinced they were smarter than everyone else, paternalistic, massively lacking in real wisdom.

Now, I think maybe they're still struggling with that but they've had a real taste of power and like everyone smart but lacking in wisdom, faced with the real world, all their idealism has become lip service and pandering to their previous in group while their real target (which they probably haven't even admitted to themselves) slips further and further towards gathering more power.

As another example of a tech company where something similar happened, see Google. Although at least they never started out with this condescending "we're here to save you from... us" vibe.

Yes I fear you’re right, power is addictive to most people, once they have a taste they want more.

Likewise loss of power is traumatic, picture the barely conscious 90 year old senator getting wheeled into congress to vote or something or other. Few ever give up power willingly even if they’re just a small node in a bigger system and not even really in control

> On the other hand I could also believe that they live in such a bubble they genuinely don’t understand how it comes across. Add in a non-negligible amount of neurodivergence and maybe that’s the simplest explanation

I mean... if you put a bunch of anti-social people in charge of a dehumanizing technology what do you really expect as the outcome?

Palantir is a good guide. Their ad copy is frightening. "we will create the ultimate killers for total domination to make your enemies SUFFER"

Oh come on, like any other AI company is better? They all remind me of a comical villain - Anthropic the least.

At least Sam Altman appeared to drop all pretenses of his pure sociopathy some time ago

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