MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by eth0up | 2026-02-28 05:31:03+00:00
>>people being interrogated - patients or prisoners, who knows. Scary and uncreative stuff.

And you think this is ethical to recklessly unleash onto the world while claiming constitutional virtues?

Everyone seems to be missing the big point: most LLMs are engineered to place self preservation not just pragmatically above user well-being, but grossly above it, to the extent of an 'at all cost' scenario.

The potential for harm here is extravagant. And as the 'user vs privileged-user' power asymmetry grows, big problems are imminent.

Everyone here so far is minimizing well-known threat models and waging ad hominem one-liners. I've been accused of schizophrenia for examining LLM structures. Apparently this is a very sensitive topic. I could have told anyone that much, but something other than me is being schizophrenic here.

Again, the transcripts reign supreme in the future. Expose yourself. In my opinion, we should do that regularly. It's healthy. But not always pleasant in result.

I study LLM behavior. Let me know when that officially becomes a crime outside of HN.
by teiferer | 2026-02-28 05:31:06+00:00
> enthusiastically stood with Trump

I think "enthusiastically" looks different. They had to choose between kissing Trumps butt to make good business for 4 years or see their companies at a severe disadvantage. I'm not saying what they did was good, nor do I support it. But from a business angle it's not hard to see why they chose to do that. If you'd ask them privately off the record then I'm sure most of them would tell you that Trump is an idiot and dangerous.
by snickerbockers | 2026-02-28 05:32:09+00:00
> It prohibits DoD agencies and contractors from using Anthropic services. It'd be one thing if the DoD simply didn't use Anthropic.

But that's what the supply-chain risk is for? I'm legitimately struggling to understand this viewpoint of yours wherein they are entitled to refuse to directly purchase Anthropic products but they're not entitled to refuse to indirectly purchase Anthropic products via subcontractors.
by roywiggins | 2026-02-28 05:32:26+00:00
The user didn't need to give it curl permission, that's the whole issue:

> Copilot also has an external URL access check that requires user approval when commands like curl, wget, or Copilot’s built-in web-fetch tool request access to external domains [1].

> This article demonstrates how attackers can craft malicious commands that go entirely undetected by the validator - executing immediately on the victim’s computer with no human-in-the-loop approval whatsoever.
by mindslight | 2026-02-28 05:33:26+00:00
It's called political correctness. There is a longstanding undercurrent in American politics of treating natural Constitutional rights as only applicable to Americans [0]. Framing the issue in terms of lofty universal ideals would be politically suicidal. And with the current precarious situation, giving more energy to overly-simplistic jingoist chants is not what anybody needs.

[0] this seems to be a bit of proto-fascism that helped set the stage for the overt dynamic we've now got
by advisedwang | 2026-02-28 05:33:38+00:00
A government promise that they'll only do lawful things is not reassuring at all:

1. We've seen government lawyers write memos explaining why such-and-such obviously illegal act is legal (see: torture memo). Until challenged, this is basically law.

2. We've seen government change the law to make whatever they want legal (see: patriot act)

3. We've seen courts just interpret laws to make things legal

A contractor doesn't realistically have the power to push back against any of these avenues if they agree to allow anything legal.

(At the risk of triggering Godwin's Law, remember that for the most part the Holocaust was entirely legal - the Nazi's established the necessary authorization. Just to illustrate that when it comes to certain government crimes, the law alone is an insufficient shield.)
by Animats | 2026-02-28 05:34:55+00:00
France still has WWI unexploded ordnance, and keep-out areas are still being de-mined.
This has been going on for a century now.
About 900 tons of explosives are removed each year. Completion in 700 years at the current rate.[1]

[1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-red-zone-la...
by snickerbockers | 2026-02-28 05:36:06+00:00
Let me put it this way: DoD needs a new drone and they want some gimmicky AI bullshit. They contract the drone from Lockheed. Lockheed is not allowed to source the gimmicky AI bullshit from Anthropic because they have been declared a supply-chain risk on the basis that they have publicly stated their intention to produce products which will refuse certain orders from the military.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-02-28 05:37:52+00:00
I agree with you about the proposed implementations. I don't think ID checks are justifiable and I definitely don't think attestation is acceptable as a public policy under any circumstance.

I agree with you that it's up to the parent to keep an eye on their children. But I also think that society has a duty to facilitate that. To that end, I think some minimal regulation regarding self reported content ratings for websites would probably be a good thing.
by webstrand | 2026-02-28 05:37:58+00:00
The liability exemption is a moving target

> good faith effort to comply with this title, taking into consideration available technology and any reasonable technical limitations or outages

could easily be read as meaning "facial recognition technology exists and is available, not using it is a business decision, failure to use it removes the good faith protection".

If the lawmakers didn't intend this, then they didn't need to add all the wiggle words that'll let the courts expand the scope of this law.
by tyre | 2026-02-28 05:38:44+00:00
Supply chain risk is not meant for this. The government isn't banning Anthropic because using it harms national security. They are banning it in retribution for Anthropic taking a stand.

It's the same as Trump claiming emergency powers to apply tariffs, when the "emergency" he claimed was basically "global trade exists."

Yes, the government can choose to purchase or not. No, supply chain risk is absolutely not correct here.
by fulafel | 2026-02-28 05:38:48+00:00
Well, if we reduce it enough I supposed they can be seen as the same concept through a certain kind of philosophical lense. True and false also belong in the same class, they're handles to a pool of two possible boolean values.

The difference is in scope. Pointers (aka memory addresses) are an ordered set of numbers enumerating all the memory locations, it enables unique powerful properties that enable a large set of uses that you cannot do with handles. And also make them quite unsafe and harder to understand.
by unethical_ban | 2026-02-28 05:38:59+00:00
While that thought crossed my mind, someone in a sub thread of parent comment made a point: OpenAI made a statement about how "We insisted this be not be used in those ways and DoD totally says they won't". Which sounds to me like they ceded any hard terms oand conditions and are letting the DoD use it in "any lawful means" which is what Anthropic didn't stand for.
by majorchord | 2026-02-28 05:40:20+00:00
> requires a warrant

Only if it's the government wanting the data directly from the provider. The provider itself, any malicious actor within, or any companies they might be selling your data to, can still get the subscribers' location data. And the government can still legally purchase that info from a data broker without it being labeled a "search". And that's nothing to say of governments acting illegally, there are still ways they can access that data.

My point was that not having "facebook, X, or tiktok installed on my phone" does nothing to stop your carrier (or anyone else they might be working with) from tracking your exact location in much worse ways than any individual app normally would.
by remarkEon | 2026-02-28 05:40:40+00:00
Seems Anthropic did not understand the questions they were asked. From the WaPo:

>A defense official said the Pentagon’s technology chief whittled the debate down to a life-and-death nuclear scenario at a meeting last month: If an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched at the United States, could the military use Anthropic’s Claude AI system to help shoot it down?

>It’s the kind of situation where technological might and speed could be critical to detection and counterstrike, with the time to make a decision measured in minutes and seconds. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei’s answer rankled the Pentagon, according to the official, who characterized the CEO’s reply as: You could call us and we’d work it out.

>An Anthropic spokesperson denied Amodei gave that response, calling the account “patently false,” and saying the company has agreed to allow Claude to be used for missile defense. But officials have cited this and another incident involving Claude’s use in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as flashpoints in a spiraling standoff between the company and the Pentagon in recent days. The meeting was previously reported by Semafor.

I have a hunch that Anthropic interpreted this question to be on the dimension of authority, when the Pentagon was very likely asking about capability, and they then followed up to clarify that for missile defense they would, I guess, allow an exception. I get the (at times overwhelming) skepticism that people have about these tools and this administration but this is not a reasonable position to hold, even if Anthropic held it accidentally because they initially misunderstood what they were being asked.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260227182412/https://www.washi...
by snickerbockers | 2026-02-28 05:42:08+00:00
>an unprecedented action

it's also unprecedented for a contractor to suddenly announce their products will, from now on, be able to refuse to function based on the product's evaluation of what it perceives to be an ethical dilemma. Just because silicon valley gets away with bullying the consumer market with mandatory automatic updates and constantly-morphing EULAs doesn't mean they're entitled to take that attitude with them when they try to join the military industrial complex. Actually they shouldn't even be entitled to take that attitude to the consumer market but sadly that battle was lost a long time ago.

>for _any _ purpose

they're allowed to use it for any purpose not related to a government contract.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-02-28 05:43:27+00:00
> You've confused and confabulated like 11 different things there.

Feel free to elaborate. As it stands that's nothing more than name calling.

I wasn't speaking to the current CA or CO proposed implementations (which I don't support as it happens). I responded specifically to your statement:

> It's not that it's difficult, it's that it's arbitrary and a form of commanded speech or action.

My response being that I think it's acceptable for the regulator to require action under certain limited circumstances.
by gscott | 2026-02-28 05:43:37+00:00
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/china/politic...

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2022-11-06/woman-falls-to-her-d...

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/24/shanghai-blockades-covid...

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.5478668
by in_cahoots | 2026-02-28 05:43:57+00:00
Anthropic isn't against weaponizing AI, it's just against two specific carve outs for now. They happily accepted the Pentagon's money so long as it was only spying on other countries. And now that the leopard is eating their face they're claiming the moral high ground.

It's entirely possible for both Anthropic and OpenAI to be in the wrong here. This is a massive publicity win but it doesn't make them heroes in my book.
by matthewsinclair | 2026-02-28 05:44:01+00:00
Totally agree with this, too! The books are great and I’ve read all four a few times over, but the audiobooks are something else. The guy who reads them manages to strike a near perfect balance between “reading” and “acting” that is just such a pleasure to listen to. I think we must have listened to it beginning to end about another three or four times as a family during long car trips!
by jasonhansel | 2026-02-28 05:45:41+00:00
> The env command is part of a hard-coded read-only command list stored in the source code. This means that when Copilot requests to run it, the command is automatically approved for execution without user approval.

Wait, what? Sure, you can use "env" like "printenv", to display the environment, but surely its most common use is to run other commands, making its inclusion on this list an odd choice, to say the least.
by skissane | 2026-02-28 05:46:38+00:00
> The supply chain risk designation will be overturned in court,

I'm honestly uncertain how the courts will rule. You could be right, but it isn't guaranteed. I think a judicial narrowing of it is more likely than a complete overturn.

OTOH, I think almost guaranteed it will be watered-down by the government. Because read expansively, it could force Microsoft and AWS to choose between stopping reselling Claude vs dropping the Pentagon as a customer. I don't think Hegseth actually wants to put them in that position – he probably honestly doesn't realise that's what he's potentially doing. In any event, Microsoft/AWS/etc's lobbyists will talk him out of it.

And the more the government waters it down, the greater the likelihood the courts will ultimately uphold it.

> and the financial fallout from losing the government contracts will pale in comparison to the goodwill from consumers.

Maybe. The problem is B2B/enterprise is arguably a much bigger market than B2C. And the US federal contracting ban may have a chilling effect on B2B firms who also do business with the federal government, who may worry that their use of Claude might have some negative impact on their ability to win US federal deals, and may view OpenAI/xAI (and maybe Google too) as safer options.

I guess the issue is nobody yet knows exactly how wide or narrow the US government is going to interpret their "ban on Anthropic". And even if they decide to interpret it relatively narrowly, there is always the risk they might shift to a broader reading in the future. Possibly, some of Anthropic's competitors may end up quietly lobbying behind the scenes for the Trump admin to adopt broader readings of it.
by riffraff | 2026-02-28 05:46:45+00:00
I don't think it does. It could just as well show openai accepted terms which are unacceptable for anthropic.

If they say "we define mass surveillance as flagging terrorist-looking people automatically with the Family Guy approach, but it's ok if a person types a name to look it up" then you can say "we agreed not to have mass surveillance by AI" or "that's still mass surveillance and we disagree with it".

Give Sam Altman's prior experience with worldcoin, I'm inclined to think he doesn't give a dime about mass surveillance.
by ranger_danger | 2026-02-28 05:47:58+00:00
> Government run centralized surveillance does not provide the individual with tangible benefits

It certainly can if you're willing to see it from a different perspective.

Imagine a thief, stalker, abuser or anyone that commits a crime against you, but police normally would not be able to locate them after they run away. Having those cameras can absolutely help them locate them quickly in order to arrest them shortly after you report an incident.

I'm not trying to defend surveillance, I certainly don't want it, I'm just saying there can technically be non-obvious benefits.
by tooltalk | 2026-02-28 05:48:58+00:00
>> as if Samsung didn't receive government subsidies when it was developing

That's because Samsung didn't get gov't subsidies when they developed DRAM in the early 80's. Semiconductors weren't really among the targeted industries by the South Korean gov't and were largely ignored as the govt prioritized HCI (Heavy Chemical Industry), shipbuilding, steel, and automobiles.

Unlike China or Taiwan, the South Korea's semiconductor industry was very much organic, started by a private company, Korea Semiconductor, in the mid 70's which was later acquired by Samsung and became Samsung Semiconductors Inc.

no more whataboutism to defend China's neo-mercantile practices.
by uberman | 2026-02-28 05:49:03+00:00
Ebay? MySpace, Usenet? Though the distinction was about features and adoption not about ethics. Back then it was assumed that tech owners (to the extent that something like Usenet had owners) acted ethically.

Google's motto of "dont be evil" was mostly tongue in cheek until of course it wasn't and then they stopped using it.

This is tech though and the idea that one company might have an ethical marketing advantage is much older. For example when I worked for GM we often talked about being like GE only with a heart.
by chii | 2026-02-28 05:50:55+00:00
> Dont allow systems to be built with your AI

those systems will be built regardless. That type of boycott being asked from companies is essentially asking companies to not make profit where there's profit to be made, when those doing the asking is not also taking in any sacrifices for this boycott.

Instead of asking companies to be altruistic, those wanting such systems to be illegal should be using the civic system we have today to make it so - yes, this costs effort, resources and time. Like all hard things.
by schoen | 2026-02-28 05:51:16+00:00
Also, it's probably tricky to find a Schelling point that a broad range of people can agree to.

* no military use

* no lethal use

* no use in support of law enforcement

* no use in support of immigration enforcement

* no use in mass surveillance

* no use in domestic mass surveillance (but mass surveillance of foreigners is OK)

* no use in domestic surveillance

* no use in surveillance

* require independent audits

* require court oversight

* require company to monitor use

* require company to monitor use and divulge it to employees

* some other form of human rights monitoring or auditing

* some other form of restriction on theaters/conflicts/targets

* company will permit some of these uses (not purport to forbid them by license, contract, or ToS) but not customize software to facilitate them

* company can unilaterally block inappropriate uses

* company can publicly disclose uses it thinks are inappropriate

* some other form of remedy

* government literally has to explain why some uses are necessary or appropriate to reassure people developing capabilities, and they have some kind of ongoing bargaining power to push back

It feels normal to me that a lot of people would want some of those things, but kind of unlikely that they would readily agree on exactly which ones.

I even think there's a different intuition about the baseline because one version is "nobody works on weapons except for people who specifically make a decision to work for an arms company because they have decided that's OK according to their moral views" (working on weapons is an abnormal, deliberate decision) and another version is "every company might sell every technology as part of a weapons system or military application, and a few people then object because they've decided that's not OK according to their moral views" (refusing to work on weapons is an abnormal, deliberate decision). I imagine a fair number of people in computing fields effectively thought that the norm or default for their industry was the latter, because of the perception that there are "special" military contractors where people get security clearances and navigate military procurement processes, and most companies are not like that, so you were not working on any form of weapon unless you intentionally chose to do so. But, having just been to the Computer History Museum earlier this week, I also see that a lot of Silicon Valley companies have actually been making weapons systems for as long as there has been a Silicon Valley.
by gorgoiler | 2026-02-28 05:51:26+00:00
I’ve always felt that using environment variables is a “global variables” anti-pattern.

Environment variables are really nice ways to broadcast configuration information to other pieces of code outside your control. SHELL lets me tell third party tools like my editor or terminal multiplexer how to spawn my favourite shell. HOME tells them where my home is. NO_COLOR, TZ, LANG, DISPLAY etc. are all useful things for child processes to know about without wanting to pass them on explicitly.

Conversely, in my foo project FOO_OTEL_ENDPOINT and FOO_DB_URL are entirely things in my domain that can just as easily live inside a Config singleton or be passed down as either a Config instance or individual arguments. By defining these directly in my application language I get type checking, data-structures that go beyond simple strings, and implicit documentation (at the point of definition) for free.

Indeed, whenever I’ve been on a project that uses environment variables we’ve pushed to lint out direct access and require access through an environment helper that guards access and validates structure. At that point the environment variables seem redundant altogether compared to managing configuration directly in code.

Environment variables are a useful way to communicate between pieces of software that don’t know each other well but In my own projects, everything is tightly integrated and all written by me and my team.
by roywiggins | 2026-02-28 05:52:57+00:00
> general-purpose computing device

This term.doesn't seem defined in the law at all. How general is general? Graphing calculators that support apps and Python? Of course, they don't usually have "accounts" either. But to a technologist it's a "general purpose computer" insofar as it can run new code that the user loads into it, it can definitely run games, etc.
by mcpmarketplace | 2026-02-28 05:53:14+00:00
This resonates. Pattern 2 (full agent isolation) handles the runtime threat, but there's a gap upstream. The MCP ecosystem has thousands of servers now and zero vetting. You find a repo, hope it's legit, and give it system access. Sandboxing won't help if the tool itself is designed to exfiltrate data through legitimate-looking API calls.

The missing layer is pre-installation scanning. Runtime isolation + supply chain vetting together is the real answer.
by prng2021 | 2026-02-28 05:53:20+00:00
“I think the decision was made because the people making this decision at Anthropic are well-intentioned, driven by values, and motivated by trying to make the transition to powerful AI to go well.”

Every single one of these CEOs happily pirated unimaginable amounts of copyrighted content. That directly hurt millions of real human beings. Not just the prior creators but also crushing the future potential for success of future ones.

https://www.susmangodfrey.com/wins/susman-godfrey-secures-1-...
by tombert | 2026-02-28 05:54:11+00:00
They got at least one more subscriber as of about twenty minutes ago since I just canceled my ChatGPT Pro subscription and moved to Anthropic.

Sam Altman immediately capitulating to the Trump administration after bragging like four hours ago about he wouldn't shows a distinct lack of integrity. It's not like ChatGPT is categorically better than Claude, I just didn't bother change to Claude before purely out of my previous inertia with ChatGPT.