Well, if what Zvi writes is true—that Anthropic was “proactively” helping the military and that their red line was “no mass domestic surveillance”—then I as a non-US person become even more disillusioned about Anthropic’s ethics than I already was.
Mass domestic surveillance is qualitatively different from, and far more dangerous than, mass surveillance of foreign citizens, since a government has far more power over its own citizens than the citizens of other countries.
Debatable. The US applies lots of power to foreigners that it can’t apply to citizens (wars, drone strikes, Abu Ghraib...) Giving it more surveillance power abroad could be a big thing, could help annex Greenland for example.
If I look at the whole of the world over the past two or three decades, I would say the average non-American’s life has been far, far more influenced by power exerted by their national government (through its laws and regulations) than by power exerted by the US government (e.g., via wars, drone strikes, and Abu Ghraib). Would you agree?
I would be curious to know what, according to you, are the reasons why mass surveillance is bad. In my mind a lot of it has to do with freedoms of speech, association, and dissent, and for these I think it’s pretty clearly worse if a citizen’s own government is surveilling them than if a foreign government does it.
Naive. US surveillance of foreigners is used to help US-friendly regimes suppress dissent. During the Indonesia 1965-66 massacre, the US sent lists of communists to be killed. Pretty sure the same things happened during Operation Condor in South America.
True, but not convincing. They have been pretty consistent in their concern for America/Americans above others. E.g., in their latest statement, regarding fully autonomous killer weapons: “We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk.” Now, one could argue that I am being insufficiently generous, but this wording sure makes it sound like the only civilians they are concerned for are American civilians. In the context of providing autonomous killer weapons to the American DoW.
Also, the citizens are supposed to be able to peacefully control the government (through political action and voting), and domestic surveillance is used against those organizing for peaceful political change. It’s like putting the gasoline companies in charge of whether you can choose an electric car.
I’ll admit that my 60 full seconds of laughter upon reading “Anthropic did not partner with the Pentagon to make money. They did it to help.” is not a rigorous basis for drawing any conclusions on their morality, but I will say that this next sentence...
No kinetic weapons without a human in the kill chain until we’re ready.
...does feel pretty damning. I could understand a hard line on “machines should never kill humans of their own volition”, and I’d be willing to support them taking such a line even when legally and geopolitically questionable, but “I want private companies to be able to overrule the elected government on the matter of who its machines will autonomously kill” is, frankly, more terrifying than either alternative.
Well, if what Zvi writes is true—that Anthropic was “proactively” helping the military and that their red line was “no mass domestic surveillance”—then I as a non-US person become even more disillusioned about Anthropic’s ethics than I already was.
Mass domestic surveillance is qualitatively different from, and far more dangerous than, mass surveillance of foreign citizens, since a government has far more power over its own citizens than the citizens of other countries.
Debatable. The US applies lots of power to foreigners that it can’t apply to citizens (wars, drone strikes, Abu Ghraib...) Giving it more surveillance power abroad could be a big thing, could help annex Greenland for example.
If I look at the whole of the world over the past two or three decades, I would say the average non-American’s life has been far, far more influenced by power exerted by their national government (through its laws and regulations) than by power exerted by the US government (e.g., via wars, drone strikes, and Abu Ghraib). Would you agree?
I would be curious to know what, according to you, are the reasons why mass surveillance is bad. In my mind a lot of it has to do with freedoms of speech, association, and dissent, and for these I think it’s pretty clearly worse if a citizen’s own government is surveilling them than if a foreign government does it.
Naive. US surveillance of foreigners is used to help US-friendly regimes suppress dissent. During the Indonesia 1965-66 massacre, the US sent lists of communists to be killed. Pretty sure the same things happened during Operation Condor in South America.
True, but not convincing. They have been pretty consistent in their concern for America/Americans above others. E.g., in their latest statement, regarding fully autonomous killer weapons: “We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk.” Now, one could argue that I am being insufficiently generous, but this wording sure makes it sound like the only civilians they are concerned for are American civilians. In the context of providing autonomous killer weapons to the American DoW.
Also, the citizens are supposed to be able to peacefully control the government (through political action and voting), and domestic surveillance is used against those organizing for peaceful political change. It’s like putting the gasoline companies in charge of whether you can choose an electric car.
I’ll admit that my 60 full seconds of laughter upon reading “Anthropic did not partner with the Pentagon to make money. They did it to help.” is not a rigorous basis for drawing any conclusions on their morality, but I will say that this next sentence...
...does feel pretty damning. I could understand a hard line on “machines should never kill humans of their own volition”, and I’d be willing to support them taking such a line even when legally and geopolitically questionable, but “I want private companies to be able to overrule the elected government on the matter of who its machines will autonomously kill” is, frankly, more terrifying than either alternative.
I’m reminded of the line from Watchmen:
If Claude becomes the superintelligent ASI that remakes the world according to its/Anthropic’s values, that might be what you get.