As much as I loathe to side with the current administration and as much as I also loathe to admit the "too dangerous to release" narrative (it's clearly been pushed by these companies as a brag not a real concern), this actually seems "consistent."

This fits the model established with RSA, PGP, and the Sony PS3. They were export controlled for quite some time. I don't think there was ever any actual danger with any of those things, and today it feels especially quaint, but they fit the model of "corporation makes wild-ass claims of superiority of their tech and USGov takes them at their word."

My big problem with this is that it's applied so narrowly to Anthropic. This should be levied against OpenAI, Google, and xAI as well. There is systemic risk with generative AI being used for deep fakes and other propaganda generation at scale that needs to be addressed.

But unfortunately, that's not what is happening here. What's happening here is a political hit job. There's one of two things happening: either USG has been roped into burying a competitor for (OpenAI/xAI/whatever), or it's been roped into creating a superiority narrative for Anthropic, such that in two years when this admin is finally ousted, Anthropic gets to enjoy a floodgate of new attention as the new regime bulk CTRL+Zs everything Trump's lackeys did. It might even be both at the same time, given the connections of the major investors. This all could get well be a stirring of the pot to see what comes out.

I can't decide which is worse.