I think a lot of your confusion is stemming from the fact that you are treating PR statments from Anthropic as if they were being made in good faith.
For example:
“Maybe Anthropic should’ve been more clear about what “behind” and “ahead” mean, and when or when not they’re giving themselves the option/soft obligation to pause”
They will try to avoid doing this because it is very embarassing when your previous statements contradict your actions.
“Are Anthropic employees not reacting to this?”
Anthropic employees are paid large amounts of money and get to talk about their concerns with other people in the organisation. They have a direct financial incentive to avoid speaking publicly against the company.
“On a personal note, many of us are much more nervous about working for Anthropic and are much more nervous about the strategic decision-making of its leadership during the critical period.”
The good news is that having a cool job and earning a huge amount of money is enough to quell any moral concerns you might have.
[speaking for myself, not the Astra fellows; more hastily written than I’d like]
This seems overly cynical. The story for the change to the RSP is cohesive and at least somewhat defensible, although (obviously) they should’ve been much clearer, sooner. The reason many of us are more nervous about working for Anthropic was not because we think they are liable to not pause, or something like this (~none of us really thought they would pause unless Appendix A scenario 1 was satisfied), but because we just now trust their decision-making less. I think if you work at Anthropic you have to at least implicitly buy into this idea of trying to win the race as safely as possible (but, importantly, winning).
Better strategic decision-makers would have put this new RSP into effect at least pre-Opus 4.5, and even better ones with the Securing Model Weights report. This change doesn’t feel like (primarily) a PR statement. Fwiw, I have seen Anthropic employees talking about this, it’s just not top-of-mind for them like the DoW story is.
My prior is that almost any decision which is not explictly absurd can be provided a cohesive and somewhat defensible justification when written by intelligent people.
I think a lot of your confusion is stemming from the fact that you are treating PR statments from Anthropic as if they were being made in good faith.
For example:
“Maybe Anthropic should’ve been more clear about what “behind” and “ahead” mean, and when or when not they’re giving themselves the option/soft obligation to pause”
They will try to avoid doing this because it is very embarassing when your previous statements contradict your actions.
“Are Anthropic employees not reacting to this?”
Anthropic employees are paid large amounts of money and get to talk about their concerns with other people in the organisation. They have a direct financial incentive to avoid speaking publicly against the company.
“On a personal note, many of us are much more nervous about working for Anthropic and are much more nervous about the strategic decision-making of its leadership during the critical period.”
The good news is that having a cool job and earning a huge amount of money is enough to quell any moral concerns you might have.
[speaking for myself, not the Astra fellows; more hastily written than I’d like]
This seems overly cynical. The story for the change to the RSP is cohesive and at least somewhat defensible, although (obviously) they should’ve been much clearer, sooner. The reason many of us are more nervous about working for Anthropic was not because we think they are liable to not pause, or something like this (~none of us really thought they would pause unless Appendix A scenario 1 was satisfied), but because we just now trust their decision-making less. I think if you work at Anthropic you have to at least implicitly buy into this idea of trying to win the race as safely as possible (but, importantly, winning).
Better strategic decision-makers would have put this new RSP into effect at least pre-Opus 4.5, and even better ones with the Securing Model Weights report. This change doesn’t feel like (primarily) a PR statement. Fwiw, I have seen Anthropic employees talking about this, it’s just not top-of-mind for them like the DoW story is.
My prior is that almost any decision which is not explictly absurd can be provided a cohesive and somewhat defensible justification when written by intelligent people.