I understand that, but I suspect the admin will now just have an informal, not-written-down policy that does exactly the same thing.

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why_only_15 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is not really possible. My guess is that the government is not willing to spend the necessary quantity of money to get e.g. Amazon or Google to divest of Anthropic and stop providing them computing resources.

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0x3f 2 days ago | parent [-]

I believe Palantir are the only ones providing gov with Claude access

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why_only_15 2 days ago | parent [-]

The point is that if DoD's supply chain restriction does what Hegseth seems to want, all contractors involved with Anthropic would have to divest. That includes Amazon and Google, who are both DoD contractors who provide massive quantities of capital and compute to Anthropic. It's irrelevant that Anthropic provides Claude through Palantir.

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0x3f 2 days ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure that's how the supply chain risk thing works. AFAIK, it has to be part of the supply chain for the products delivered to the DoD to count. I don't think just because Amazon is unrelatedly involved with Anthropic, this forces them to sever that relationship. I'm not sure if Hegseth thinks otherwise, but it's entirely possible that he is wrong or that being wrong is expedient to his threats.

	▲	unsnap_biceps 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I believe you are correct, but they could still weaponize it by requiring the contractors to document proof of not using Anthropic products and can drag that out as long as they want to.

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SpicyLemonZest 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How would they implement such a policy? Amazon, Google, etc. aren't realistically going to terminate all business with Anthropic based on an informal policy that the DoD won't write down.

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0x3f 2 days ago | parent [-]

Same as they already pressure these companies. Remove access to the admin thus giving them unfavorable terms on other issues compared to their rivals. Tell them as much in private and what they can do to rectify it. That's this admin's whole modus operandi, is it not? There's a reason all the CEOs clamor to go to the relevant WH events.

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SpicyLemonZest 2 days ago | parent [-]

A CEO's time isn't that valuable. Even if you count an amortized fraction of their total compensation, sending them to a White House event for an evening is orders of magnitude less costly than giving up access to the best software development tools.

	▲	0x3f 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think you have to add in the cost of PR toxicity for being so closely associated with Trump, though. Most of these guys are from the prime liberal subculture of America, even if in private they lean another way. Traditionally they've never emitted so much praise or support for one president over another, but with Trump it seems like the price of entry to get in on e.g. AI discussions around regulation or funding. Musk is arguably a player in the space but wasn't involved due to some falling out with Trump.

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Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How is an unwritten policy about suppliers of suppliers of suppliers going to affect a million companies?

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Ifkaluva 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

No you don’t understand, they can’t accomplish the same by an informal policy.

Both Google and Amazon are government contractors. With the designation, they might have had to divest their positions in Anthropic and be unable to serve their models.

No informal rule accomplishes that.

	▲	0x3f 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think that's true, as I stated elsewhere: > I'm not sure that's how the supply chain risk thing works. AFAIK, it has to be part of the supply chain for the products delivered to the DoD to count. I don't think just because Amazon is unrelatedly involved with Anthropic, this forces them to sever that relationship. I'm not sure if Hegseth thinks otherwise, but it's entirely possible that he is wrong or that being wrong is expedient to his threats.