Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

if you're not american you should be worried about the bit of using AI to kill people which was the other major objection by Anthropic.

(not that I think the US DoD wouldn't do that anyway, ToS or not.)



Anthropic's issue was only that the AI isn't yet good enough to tell who's an American, so it avoids killing them. They were fine with the "killing non-Americans" bit.


I don't think that is true at all, could you provide a source?


https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war

> But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk.


That’s interesting: I recall reading that sentence but I parsed it as “America’s warfighters” AND “civilians” (i.e., civilians in general), rather than as “America’s warfighters and America’s civilians”. I think the former reading is more plausible since American civilians are not normally at physical risk from American military operations. It’s unfortunate that this sentence is worded ambiguously, though.


Oh interesting, I didn't parse it as "civilians in general". Hm, yes, it is unfortunate that we won't know what he meant to write.


well, if they put in a fully automated kill chain, its gonna be weak to attacks to make yourself look like a car, or a video game styled "hide under a box"

the current non-automated kill chain has targeted fishermen and a girl's school. Nobody is gonna be held accountable for either.

Am i worried about the killing or the AI? If i'm worried about the killing, id much rather push for US demilitarization.


Not only is Anthropic perfectly happy to let the DoD use their products to kill people, but they are partners with Palantir and were apparently instrumental in the strikes against Iran by the US military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/03/04/anthrop...

So uh, yeah, the only difference I see between OAI and Anthropic is that one is more honest about what they’re willing to use their AI for.


OK, I am worried.

Now, what can I actually do?


Vote with your dollar. Ask others to do the same and explain why. If we all did this, it might matter. There’s not a lot else an individual can do.


Dario in fact said it was ok to spy and drone non-US citizens, and in fact endorsed American foreign policy generally.

So, no, I'm not voting with my wallet for one American country versus the other. I'll pick the best compromise product for me, and then also boost non-American R&D where I can.


Vote with your wallet, just like Americans.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: