"Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic."

This is authoritarian behavior. You're having trouble negotiating a contract, so instead of just canceling it - you basically ban all of F500 from doing business with that firm.

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vharuck 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This certainly isn't going to attract foreign investment. Business isn't big on governments that capriciously threaten to seize control of or financially harm them.

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llm_nerd 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US is currently an autocracy/idiocracy. A staggeringly corrupt, busted nation.

Soon enough the midterms will be effectively cancelled.

Americans remain blissfully unaware.

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rootusrootus 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The US is currently an autocracy/idiocracy. A staggeringly corrupt, busted nation.

We are in a bad place right now, that is for certain.

> Soon enough the midterms will be effectively cancelled.

That would be a pretty big leap from where we are. I think it is important to pay attention, and very important to vote, but there is not a particularly plausible route to cancelling any elections. But they can certainly make enough noise that a lot of people may become confused or scared to vote. So we need to remain laser focused on getting everybody to the polls. Like, this should be priority #1 for every citizen who wants to see democracy continue.

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pcj-github 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The midterms are not going to go according to anything like historical precedent. If allowed to function normally, Trump loses, and the whole stack of cards collapses. They know that, and will do literally anything and everything to prevent it. If allowed to get away with it, the US is never coming back.

Civil unrest very likely in November.

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bigtex88 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They won't outright cancel the elections but they will do things like send ICE to contested districts to harass law-abiding voters; pressure states to remove people from voter rolls and make it difficult if not impossible for them to re-register in time to be able to vote; and otherwise just scream fraud and cheating and stolen when they lose the House.

	▲	baby_souffle 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly this. Belarus has elections, technically. Are they legitimate and free from coercion? Not really…

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gnarlouse 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, it's pretty obvious what these ******s are about to pull. "We'Re NeVeR gOiNg BaCk" --Trump

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nemo44x 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think it’s sovereign behavior and what’s the point of being sovereign if you don’t exercise the power of the sovereign?

I guess I would support the democratically elected sovereign over the private corporation.

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theahura 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be clear, the sovereign is generally considered to be vested in Congress as representatives of the true sovereign, the people.

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nemo44x 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s not true at all. The people selected an executive.

	▲	theahura an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Sorry, do you think Congress just like appears? Remember that the people do NOT select the executive, the electoral college does. And the electoral college is in turn selected by states.

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gambiting 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What does being sovereign have to do with anything in this case?

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nemo44x 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The sovereign is the ultimate authority. In the USA “we the people” delegate the sovereign power to our elected officials.

They are now exercising that power in the interest of the people (they believe) that grant that power.

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Rudybega 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You don't actually believe in the core tenets of the USA if you think that the government should have or should exercise unchecked, abusive power.

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charcircuit 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The power should be checked by the people and the government we have established. It shouldn't have its power checked by private corporations.

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spankalee 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The government wants to use AI to decide who to kill. Fuck that.

	▲	charcircuit 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		1. The restriction applies to even writing documentation, adding comments, scanning for bugs, or even scanning for security vulnerabilities in systems for fully autonomous weapons. As automated vulnerability discovery gets stronger and stronger it is critical that have the ability to have a strong defense. 2. It is a principled take on that private companies shouldn't be making the decisions what their tools can and can't be used for in such an important sector.

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bigtex88 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Corporations are people my friend.

	▲	charcircuit 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		A small group of people who may hold views that conflict with the citizens of a country.

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beej71 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're not American so it might be hard to wrap your head around, but here the "sovereign" leadership is not the ultimate authority.

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smlavine 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ever heard of the Constitution?

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spiderice 4 hours ago | parent [-]

What part of the constitution is being violated here? Genuine question.

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CamperBob2 4 hours ago | parent [-]

5A taking without compensation, for one thing. The government can't unilaterally change the terms of a contract to seize more value for itself, at least not without following processes that don't play out on Twitter.

You could even make a Third Amendment case if you stretched the logic far enough. Does "you can't be forced to quarter soldiers" extend to being forced to provide other forms of support?

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nemo44x 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s a stretch. They’re saying that they are cancelling their contract and anyone that you can’t do business with both parties.

California literally does this all the time.

	▲	CamperBob2 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		California literally does this all the time. Does what? Place companies on a list of businesses that no supplier to the state government of California is allowed to do business with? I'm unfamiliar with such a list but I suppose anything is possible these days.

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charcircuit 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Anthropic dictating what our military can and can't do is also authoritarian behavior. The military is responsible to the US people, where Anthropic isn't. Giving power to a company instead of the people is wrong.

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knightscoop 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The word you are searching for is not authoritarian, but liberty.

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anigbrowl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is Anthropic required to sell to the government even if doesn't want to, and is willing to give up its government contracts rather than change its terms of use?

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charcircuit 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Anthropic is free to not sell to the government.

	▲	buttercraft 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That is apparently false given this situation

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CamperBob2 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So what I'm hearing is, having trampled every other amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Trump administration is now turning its sights to the Third.

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charcircuit 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

We are not talking about soldiers living in Anthropic's offices. We are talking about an office employee being able to generate a PowerPoint about autonomous weapon systems.

	▲	CamperBob2 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Addressed elsewhere in the thread. I could easily envision a Supreme Court decision based on reasoning such as, "Clearly the intent of the framers was that American citizens should not be forced to provide goods or services to the military against their will." Dumber stretches of logic have certainly emerged from SCOTUS. If Wickard v. Filburn makes sense to them, so could this. Maybe not from the present bench, but perhaps from a hypothetically less-partisan one.