| ▲ | hakrgrl 3 hours ago |
| 1.5 hours after this was posted, Sam Altman stated openai will work with the DoW. So much for this waste of a domain name. https://x.com/sama/status/2027578652477821175 "Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.
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| ▲ | nikolay 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| He's the reason why many people avoid OpenAI as he is among the top 3 most untrustworthy people in tech! |
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| ▲ | busko 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| For those who don't use X: https://xcancel.com/sama/status/2027578652477821175 |
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| ▲ | andai 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | >Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement. I don't get it. Aren't these the same things that Anthropic was trying to negotiate? Edit: a comment here explains it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47188473#47190614 | |
| ▲ | nobody_r_knows 35 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Redirect every tweet to x-cancel link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/xcancelcom-redirect... Saves you the hastle of visiting that shit-show. | |
| ▲ | jamiequint 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | WTF is this garbage site? | | |
| ▲ | nikolay 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It's for people who want to read Twitter/X while trying so hard to convince themselves that they don't. | | |
| ▲ | zahlman 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's for people who want to read individual posts on Twitter/X without requiring JavaScript and without being fed a sidebar full of algorithmic recommendations. | |
| ▲ | busko 20 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's for people who want the context of what's going on here who have neither the time nor stupidity to be on X. I presume you're on X so no offence to you directly. |
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| ▲ | esseph 25 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | it mirrors what is on x.com |
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| ▲ | ahf8Aithaex7Nai 3 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I dislike the style of Altman's language about as much as I dislike the bullshit language used in politics or the self-incriminating, overly specific denials used by prominent figures to defend themselves against criminal allegations: “I have never had sexual relations with anyone under the age of 18 outside of my own family.” The language is so coded that the many places where the core statement must be negated stand out like a sore thumb. |
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| ▲ | Gigachad 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Something doesn’t make sense here. His tweet claims he has exactly the same restrictions that Anthropic had. |
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| ▲ | skissane an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | This tweet (from Under Secretary of State Jeremy Lewin) explains it: https://x.com/UnderSecretaryF/status/2027594072811098230 https://xcancel.com/UnderSecretaryF/status/20275940728110982... The OpenAI-DoW contract says "all lawful uses", and then reiterates the existing statutory limits on DoW operations. So it basically spells out in more detail what "all lawful uses" actually means under existing law. Of course, I expect it leaves interpreting that law up to the government, and Congress may change that law in the future. Anthropic wanted to go beyond that. They wanted contractual limitations on those use cases that are stronger than the existing statutory limitations. OpenAI has essentially agreed to a political fudge in which the Pentagon gets "all lawful uses" along with some ineffective language which sounds like what Anthropic wanted but is actually weaker. Anthropic wasn't willing to accept the fudge. | | |
| ▲ | squarefoot a few seconds ago | parent | next [-] | | "All lawful uses" has no meaning when a malignant narcissistic sociopath in power controlled by ruthless rich psychopaths can now rewrite every law at will. | |
| ▲ | qdotme an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well, or just the possibility of future-proofing the agreement in favor of the US government, as well as walking back the slippery slope of „no autonomic lethality” and „no mass surveillance”. The former, grants the Congress the ability to change the definition of all „lawful use” as democratically mandated (if the war is officially declared, if the martial law is officially declared). The latter, is subtle. There can exist a human responsibility for lethal actions taken by fully autonomous AI - the individual who deploys it, for instance, can be made responsible for the consequences even if each individual „pulling of a trigger” has no human in the loop (Dario’s PoV unacceptable). Similarly, and less subtly, acceptance of foreign mass surveillance, domestic surveillance (as long as its lawful and not meeting the unlawful mass surveillance limits!) seems to be more in the Pentagon’s favor. Whether we like it or not, we’re heading into some very unstable time. Anthropic wanted to anchor its performance to stable (maybe stale) social norms, Pentagon wanted to rely on AI provider even as we change those norms. | |
| ▲ | PakG1 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because the US government has such a great track record on ensuring that this kind of stuff is only done legally with the utmost integrity. /s |
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| ▲ | Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sam probably told them they can renegotiate those restrictions in a year or so when the drama has died down. | | |
| ▲ | patcon an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | yeah, something shady. i don't trust sam at all. i once ran into someone in london in 2023 who was doing their thesis on AI regulation. they had essentially ended up doing a case-study on sam. their honest non-academic conclusion (which they shared quietly) was that they were absolutely terrified of sam altman. fear is one of those signals we ought to listen to more often | |
| ▲ | m3kw9 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is not shady, the systems are not ready for that kind of task esp autonomous hunting. Is smart negotiations, plus Sam would have used the Anthropic situation against them saying you can’t designate all AI top American AI companies supply chain risk etc. it’s complete idiocy the would do that anyways | | |
| ▲ | qdotme 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Ready at what level, though. The subtleties are what matters. It’s well established that belligerents can use mines, to separate the tactical decision of deploying for purposes of area denial; from the snap-second lethal decision (if one can stretch that definition) to detonate in response to an triggering event. Dario’s model prohibits using AI to decide between enemy combatant and an innocent civilian (even if the AI is bad at it, it is better than just detonating anyways); Sam’s model inherits the notion that the „responsible human” is one that decided to mine that bridge; and AI can make the kill decision. How is that fundamentally different in the future war where an officer might make a decision to send a bunch of drones up; but the drones themselves take on the lethal choice of enemy/ally/no-combatant engagement without any human in the loop? ELI5 why we can’t view these as smarter mines? |
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| ▲ | labrador an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is a actaully a government bailout of OpenAI. Investors gave it a bunch of money earlier knowing this was going to happen. Greg Brockman is a major Republican donor for 2026. Nice for OpenAI. | |
| ▲ | ddtaylor 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | PR spin/lying while behind closed doors agreeing to it. What's hard to understand about OpenAI lying? Altman publicly claimed he had no financial stake in OpenAI to emphasize his mission-driven focus. In 2024 it was revealed that Altman personally owned the OpenAI Startup Fund. In May 2024, actress Scarlett Johansson accused Altman of intentionally mimicking her voice for ChatGPT's "Sky" persona after she had explicitly declined to work with them. When OpenAI’s aggressive non-disparagement agreements were leaked, which threatened to strip departing employees of all their vested equity (potentially millions of dollars) if they criticized the company, Altman claimed he was unaware of the "provision." | |
| ▲ | gritspants 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My theory is that they both went through normal procurement processes. At some point, one of Palantir's forward deployed sales agents slapped someone's arm at the golph course and said, yes we can automously kill with our AI agents. Anthropic, having little to do with the kind of 'AI' in a use case that made sense for, declined. | | | |
| ▲ | straydusk 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I know the reaction to this, if you're a rational observer, is "OpenAI have cut corners or made concessions that Anthropic did not, that's the only thing that makes sense." However, if you live in the US and pay a passing attention to our idiotic politics, you know this is right out of the Trump playbook. It goes like this: * Make a negotiation personal * Emotionally lash out and kill the negotiation * Complete a worse or similar deal, with a worse or similar party * Celebrate your worse deal as a better deal Importantly, you must waste enormous time and resources to secure nothing of substance. That's why I actually believe that OpenAI will meet the same bar Anthropic did, at least for now. Will they continue to, in the same way Anthropic would have? Seems unlikely, but we'll see. | |
| ▲ | foobarqux 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, the difference is that the government agrees to no "unlawful" use as determined by the government. Anthropic said that mass surveillance was per se prohibited even if the government self-certified that it was lawful. | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You really think someone would do that, just go on the internet and tell lies? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-t... | |
| ▲ | Tadpole9181 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well tweets aren't legally binding, so chances are he's just outright lying so they can have their cake (DoD contracts) and eat it too (no bad PR) | | |
| ▲ | jkaplowitz 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Well tweets aren't legally binding There's nothing in general about a tweet that makes it any more or less legally binding than any other public communication, and they certainly can be used in legally binding ways. But sure, a simple assertion to the public from the CEO of a privately held company about what a separate contract says is not legally binding - whether through tweet, blog, press release, news interview, or any other method. | |
| ▲ | sudo_cowsay an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | companies like saying things that makes it look like they aren't doing anything bad but then they decide to do exactly what they said they wouldnt e.g. google project maven, microsoft hololens (military), and much much more | |
| ▲ | nurettin 7 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is so funny to me. Especially since Elon musk had to buy Twitter due to his tweets. |
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| ▲ | moralestapia 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Makes 100% sense. They said yes to the same thing. | | |
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| ▲ | mcs5280 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Remember when they removed him for not being consistently candid? |
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| ▲ | jalapenos an hour ago | parent [-] | | And then Microsoft forced him back in on the grounds of: he's a scumbag but he's our scumbag so he's untouchable |
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| ▲ | RobLach 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So all these OpenAI signers are resigning, or...? |
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| ▲ | dataflow 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The wording I see is not exactly free of loopholes. I noted them on the other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47190163 |
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| ▲ | dang 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Related ongoing thread: OpenAI agrees with Dept. of War to deploy models in their classified network - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650 - Feb 2026 (22 comments) |
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| ▲ | neya an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is not about wars or winning contracts. If you know about Sam's strategies - It's just business. This deal ensures Anthropic doesn't have the financial cushion that OpenAI desperately needs (they just raised billions, also trending on HN). Is it ethical? Probably not. But, all is fair in love and war (proverb). |
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| ▲ | puchatek 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | The deal was only possible because anthropic stayed by their convictions. OpenAI didn't have agency in that. You're making it sound like Altman orchestrated the whole thing. | |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | jalapenos an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Altman is a snake who uses words purely instrumentally, and this is well known. He basically takes advantage of people's limited memories and default assumption that when a person says something its honest. |
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| ▲ | m3kw9 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Learn to read. “ Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.” |
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| ▲ | chamomeal 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Aaaaaand it’s gone |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
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| ▲ | SilverElfin an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Greg Brockman who cofounded OpenAI is the biggest donor to Trump’s PAC. Altman claims they kept the same restrictions as Anthropic essentially. So my conclusion is OpenAI successfully bribed the government into ditching Anthropic and viciously attacking them by abusing their power (supply chain risk). Probably the most corrupt way of killing a competitor I’ve heard of. |
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| ▲ | stinkbeetle 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [flagged] |
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| ▲ | hshdhdhj4444 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You’re right. The people who actually know stuff about the world are reality TV stars, Fox News hosts, and podcasters just asking questions. Those are the people with actual knowledge. | | | |
| ▲ | Jimmc414 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What else can they do? Would you recommend they stay silent? It sounds like they are no longer the gatekeepers of this technology or they never were to begin with. | | |
| ▲ | stinkbeetle 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I would recommend they start by understanding the landscape and developing strategies that are more suited for the actual world as it is, not the naive fantasy land they believe it is. Coming out publicly playing their hand like it's a royal flush when it's a 7 high and their cards are facing their opponent clearly wasn't going to do anything. The cynical take is they aren't that naive and this just gives them plausible deniability within their social circles when they are interrogated as to why they work for these corporations. But I like to give the benefit of the doubt. | |
| ▲ | WatermelonApe 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | teaearlgraycold 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | All they did was say they didn’t want their company to do something. They never said they had the power to ensure that. |
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| ▲ | senderista an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| "The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place." So you better just let the guys with the guns do whatever they want. |
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