That has all changed today, except for Anthropic. You think Apple is going to stand up to an unlawful DoJ demand these days? Hell no. Tim Cook has lit Apple's reputation on fire. I've been a super dedicated Apple user for 25 years, but I'm heading for the exits now. All that trust has been burned.
Stay strong Anthoproc, you are seemingly the only really large SV company with any principles and backbone. I won't forget what happens here, either way it goes.
I think they pretty clearly demonstrated good faith and where it ends up is a tactical choice I'm not in a great position to judge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
PRISM started in 2007, during the Iraq war.
Companies such as?
They are on the side of making money. And the bigger they are, the more pressure. The big tech companies are now so big that they can’t afford to leave any money in the table if they want to keep their growth rates.
Now companies are dominated by MBAs and nepotism. Most join tech for a quick cash out. Having values is seen as a loss, because if you can get a billion, why not? You're invincible if you're rich and none of these downsides apply to you. Screw everyone else. They could just be a billionaire themselves if they don't like it.
As a result, zoomers today meme about people like the unabomber making a good point.
I don't blame them.
As a nerd I think my spirit was broken by the absolute apathy of the normies. It was easy to ignore up until the early 2000s. It's become unbearable after social media and the iPhone reached the masses. It's not nerd stuff anymore. They influence every design now. They shape every decision. They are actively exploited at every turn. They are profiled, surveilled, controlled. It's gotten to the point even we nerds can't escape this fate no matter how much we want to. We try to tell them about it and we're made out to be tinfoil hat nutjobs. It's happening and they don't care.
It feels so hopeless and it's honestly very radicalizing. It breeds sociopathy. In the end I can't find the will to blame the billionaires either. I think I'd do the same if I could. Make billions and then just create a small paradise for me and all the people I care about. A subset of society where the principles I hold dear actually apply. Society is too fucked up and nobody cares, so I'll just create my own fiefdom.
If those tools are open source, fix them. If they're not open source, don't use them. Problem solved.
It's not hard to write an installation script.
(Dropping safety pledge)
The best thing the company could do if they want to stick to principles is not be based in the US.
But then they can't make their billions selling our data.
You might as well suggest Mobil not sell gasoline or oil.
The courts have lost their goddamn minds.
Anthropic opened themselves to this disaster by making that first contract with the military.
I don’t want them to lose this battle but it’s also one they brought upon themselves by stepping into that arena.
Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards
I would personally add "bullied, coerced and/or gaslighted into doing surveillance".
I don't understand why the US government is doing this though. Wouldn't it be much easier to do use some of the already passed laws on foreign intelligence to open a surveillance data pipeline? You know, like PRISM.
I mean, this is inconsistent with the previous M.O., and highly unusual.
I also feel very conflicted to suddenly have to "defend Anthropic", a company that has been systematically doing evil things (destabilizing markets, promoting misleading media campaings, etc). I don't want to defend those guys.
Can I just dislike both the US military and Anthropic at the same time, and say there are no good guys here?
FTFY
They're going to spy on you regardless.