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The Anthropic C-suite needs to rewatch Oppenheimer.
More details are emerging regarding the US Government's decision to impose defense export controls on Claude Fable. There are lots of similarities between this kerfuffle and the February Supply Chain Risk designation. Somehow, Anthropic executives still don't understand the language of power and government. It's not hard. All they need to do is watch Oppenheimer (and pay attention this time). If they still can't figure it out, here is my cheat sheet:
If you are working on sufficiently powerful technology with dual-use applications, then you work for the War Department. There is no option for you to continue your preferred work while licensing only peaceful civilian applications of your product.
If you piss off the wrong person, you're screwed. Some people will see defeating you as a stepping stone to greater power and influence. Some people will work to destroy you simply out of spite.
Anthropic has scientific geniuses, Anthropic has an Oppenheimer, but does Anthropic have a General Groves? How far do you think Oppenheimer would have gotten without General Groves?
If you are trying to convince the government that you are not a security risk, do not hire people like this and present them as neutral experts. (No seriously, what the actual fuck were they thinking?)
You don't get to decide what counts as a security risk and what doesn't. That is the job of the government and the political process.
The president does not care about your ethical concerns. You think you know how much he doesn't care, but he actually cares much less than that.
If you aren't okay with the government using your technology, then don't build it. Isidor Rabi said no. You can say no too.
There is an ideology which assumes that the political leadership knows best what is good for the people, and that the industry should be subservient to their will.
There is another ideology which is based on the weird conception that people have rights, including the right to to form groups to do stuff in a way which might displease the government.
Most polities will happily strong-arm any and all resources into their survival if they feel their existence is being threatened. But with the former ideology, it is the rule, not the exception.
Oh no, a pink-haired woman. The horror, the horror. She seems a "security risk" in that she likely did not vote for Trump. Surprisingly, that does not make her a North Korean spy.
Anthropic obviously believes that MAGA will not retain total control of the government for long, and that it is therefore not in their best interests to do a lot of ring-kissing.
Or you could just find a government which is not run by some mafia don in collaboration with some wannabe fascists who reflexively shout "NATIONAL SECURITY!" whenever they don't get their way. It seems unlikely that the Swiss government would use force you to allow them to use your LLM to pick Iranian schools to bomb, for example.
She seems a security risk in that she likely does not think the United States should exist as an independent sovereign entity, probably believes in nonsense like open borders, socialism, feminism, and that you should punch nazis (and anyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi). I know basically nothing about her other than her hairstyle and a couple tweets on her front page, but most of those are probably true. She's not a North Korean spy, but if the EU sends a message about how they desperately need the latest AI to solve climate change, she might leak them some advanced stuff that in turn makes its way to China. If they tell her about how the American public is being manipulated by "Russian spies" she might set up autonomous AI to go through and censor all conservatives off the internet. Or suppress news about ballot stuffing or minorities scamming the welfare system.
If an Islamic terrorist/spy sold a sob story about how Israel is oppressing them, would she be more sympathetic and protective of the Islamist or the Jews? Or the U.S. as an independent and sovereign nation which should continue to exist?
Having pink hair is not itself a crime. It's just a massive red flag that is strongly correlated with things we do/should care about and are actual security risks. Stereotypes exist for a reason.
Funny, if I think a foreign entity illicitly gains access to US classified information through human sources to gain an advantage in the ME conflict, the possibility foremost in my mind is not a pink-haired SJW gave intel to Hamas.
Everyone is a security risk. Immigrants might still have ties to their country of origin. Religious people subscribe to a system of ethics which is not coextensive to US criminal law, and even non-theists might have moral codes which limit their compliance with lawful orders. Anyone might succumb to propaganda about how the US would be better as a commie or fascist state. Anyone involved in the culture war might believe that winning is more important than following the law. Women may be susceptible to love scams, men to hot women who are mysteriously into them. Anthropic is worth almost a trillion dollars, it seems reasonable to assume that the black market value of their models would range at least in the tens of billions. Many people who could not be lured to China by a million or ten might think about defection for this kind of money.
Anthropic has strong financial incentives to stop the weights of their models from leaking. I doubt that a flash drive with all their internal documentation and model weights is gifted to every employee as part of the onboarding process.
TSA has a very good idea of which passengers are most likely to be terrorists, but because of this proto-woke "Everyone is a security risk" dogma we make everyone take off their shoes. (Or used to, before we invented more invasive scanners.)
It's the same for the police and law enforcement: profiling works because risk is not uniformly distributed through human populations.
And there are always exceptions and sometimes the risk isn't what a naive stereotype would assume. But between a Catholic and a pink-haired SJW I think we all know which description is likelier to press the defect button out of adherence to an all-encompassing creed.
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Has she said that? Your "likely" is carrying a lot right now.
At least the first one was meaningful as a security risk if true (emphasis on if). This is just considering anyone with ideas you don't like as a threat to the nation.
Even idiots can have opsec. I am under no requirement to wait for her to speak to judge her on her appearance.
Would you feel comfortable if someone said the same thing about you? "I believe KMC seems he would touch my child inappropriately, and I have no requirement to wait for him to actually do anything to a child before I judge him as a child predator".
Do you think their personal vibes alone is enough that they can justifiably say KMC is likely a child predator? Heck "He supports the Epstein regime so he's a threat to children" is arguably more solid than "she has blue hair so she wants to destroy the US" cause at least the Epstein coverup is directly about child abusers.
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