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Notes -
Anthropic is Now Running Television Ads Threatening Humanity
I saw this ad play on my tv while watching the England vs Argentina postgame. I could not believe what I was watching. I had vaguely heard of a tone-deaf video from Anthropic communications, but I hadn't actually watched it until it popped up on my screen against my will. I am stunned that this is how Anthropic chose to portray themselves to the general public. Maybe this sort of messaging works on a tiny subset of niche technological policy nerds, but they played this during the World Cup.
The ad opens with scenes of destruction: a house ablaze, civil unrest in the streets, hundreds of graves at Arlington National Cemetary. A concerned voiceover asks the questions that many of us ask of the AI industry every day. "Can AI be trusted?" "Who's gonna hit the brakes if we need to?" "How do we really ensure that what we're aiming to acheive really does benefit the majority of people?" All good questions that the rest of the ad is utterly unconcerned with answering.
It feels like a threat. It doesn't feel like they're saying, "oh please God somebody stop us". It feels like they're saying, "just try and stop us, MUAHAHAHAHA!" I suppose it's good that they acknowledge the gravity of what they are undertaking, but that doesn't really matter if they keep doing it anyway.
Also, sort-of-unrelated-but-not-really: Is "Total Clanker Genocide" an acceptable sign for an anti-AI protest?
I am still perplexed by Arlington in particular. What concern were they even trying to convey? Was it something as detached as "hmm look up common symbols of loss of life that register to American normies, ok this one would work"?
They have just had a very ugly fight with the Department of War because they refused to maximally assist Trump and Hegseth with their lethality maxxing, and specifically were accused (as it happens) of endangering the lives of Our Boys who bleed and spill blood for Freedom. So what's the narrative?
"If AI is unchecked, it may send Americans to die"?
"Unaligned AI will fight the US Army"?
"If Anthropic doesn't have supremacy in AI, many American servicemen will die fighting China"? (actually a plausible argument, but inconsistent with the rest).
The voiceover provides little insight.
As a palate cleanser, I offer the new video from Kimi Moonshot. Absolutely meaningless, clearly aping earlier, better-designed Anthropic ads, but pretty. It hypes up the upcoming K3 that seems to be stronger than Opus 4.8. Looking forward to the next geopolitical post from Dario.
I thought it was an ad just for AI engineers to show 'yeah we get it, this is existential, come work with us and not Zuck's short-form video hell factory or OpenAI's revolving-door chief safety facade officer'.
Anthropic doesn't care about the peasants, they want to draw more talented people from Google or OpenAI or Meta. Peasants include the bulk of the US govt too I think, standing up to Trump enhances Dario's clout amongst those he's really courting.
The interesting question is why those people are particularly likely to be watching a World Cup semi-final between England and Argentina. I suppose everyone who isn't a heritage-American or an IPL diehard is going to be watching a World Cup semi-final, but given that heritage-Americans and Indians are over-represented groups in Silicon Valley, it seems an inefficient way of reaching the target audience.
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