alt Hacker NewsThere's a third possibility. Anthropic's management desires cover to remove limiters on some of its products for some of its customers. The Pentagon is more than happy to play the bad guy if it means that they get something that's even more useful to them than what they would have gotten otherwise.
"We made these compromises because national defense is really super important." has historically proven to be a really effective explanation for tech companies that want to abandon some of their previously-stated "nice and friendly" values in exchange for money.
When I imagine a world with this scenario being the truth, I am less confused than when I imagine a world with the alternatives. I find this to be a fantastic and historically reliable (for me) heuristic.
That being said, I imagine it also factors into internal dialogue that allows those higher up to explain to the boots-on-the-ground researchers that "no you're not working for the military industrial complex, they're just stealing your work that was intended to feed the orphans!"