This. This is a public misdirection. They already signed a new deal. It may be to their disliking but nothing in the statement prevents them from moving forward.

That is speculation. You might be correct but this statement could simply be a strong signal to the administration to back down. A hail Mary.

> ... to back down.

Or else what?

Isn't that what we're all doing in this thread? We could certainly take the document at face value but as a parent commenter said, almost every company starts off with "don't be evil" then goes and does evil things.

Is anthropic different? Maybe. But personally I don't see any indication to give them the benefit of the doubt.

This. I don't get why you are getting downvoted. The statement literally says:

  Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now:

Last word is very important: "now".

I'm not saying whether or not they're planning to back down, but this sentence doesn't imply that. The "now" is clearly meant to be in reference to the fact they've not in the past.

Being a tech forum centered around VC funding means we have a TON of tech bros (derogatory) here, who believe in nothing beyond getting their own piles of money for doing literally anything they can be paid to do. If you offered these guys $20 to murder a grandmother they'd ask if they have to cover the cost of the murder weapon or if that's provided.

I get it to a degree, people gotta eat, and especially right now the market is awful and, not to mention, most hyperscaler businesses have been psychologically obliterating people for a decade or more at this point. Why not graduate to doing it with weapons of war too? But, personally, I sleep better at night knowing nothing I've made is helping guide missiles into school busses but that's just me.

> They've left themselves a backtrack, and with the care there this statement has been crafted, that's surely deliberate.

What's worse, someone in their PR department will read this thread and be disappointed that the spin didn't work.

I mean that’s just adulthood.

There are outcomes where the US government seizes the company. Not super likely, not impossible.

It would be naive to write a statement that a future event will never happen, under any circumstances. People who make that mistake get lambasted for hypocrisy when unforeseen circumstances arise.

I see recognition that making absolute statements about the future is best left to zealots and prophets. Which to me speaks of maturity, not duplicity.

I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted.

It is indeed a naive, or more likely a dishonest thing to do.

Anyone can promise anything. When there's little to no accountability and public memory/opinion doesn't last a week (or is easily manipulated anyway), then promises mean literally nothing. Very like how, in politics, temporary means permanent.

Or HackerNews itself, with them implementing a little Big Brother. It will, of course, absolutely and without a doubt only "nudge" people and it will absolutely, under no circumtances, pinky promise, never get any worse or do anything else but that.

When there's millions of fools, then those, who actually recognize that they are being fooled, are rarely ever significant in numbers. They're drowned out by the fools, until said fools "wake up" and cry "if only we had known!".

Well ... you could have known, but in your mindlessness you didn't listen and think.

"It must be true, because they say so. D'uh. What are you, dumb?"

> There are outcomes where the US government seizes the company. Not super likely, not impossible.

Are there historical examples in the US specifically where we've nationalized a business?

Because we've certainly invaded countries and assassinated leaders over exactly the same.

ETA: I could have answered my own question with two minutes of research. Yes, we have: https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-...