The DoD is those defense contractors and companies' _primary target customer_. That doesn't just mean they're dependent on them as a customer. That means everyone working with, for, and adjacent to them has knowingly signed up to work with a defense contractor and to sell to someone that wants to use weapons in anger. That means these companies were mostly _founded_ to do that.

So instead, I invite you to imagine a medical supply company refusing to sell medical-grade sodium thiopental to the Bureau of Prisons.

Not even a close comparison. A regular plane does not make a decision to fire on a target.

It's not that they are too lethal. It's "we will not build a weapon system that is fully autonomous and acts without a human in the loop".

The big boy defense contractors won't touch that shit either because as soon as you mention the idea the engineers start shouting you down from the top of their lungs out of shear unbridled terror and the lawyers come storming in due to the endless legal risk said design would bring.

Mass Domestic surveillance sure they might do no problem but fully autonomous killbots or drones are gonna be a no go from pretty much every contractor other that doesn't carry a "missing the point of Lord of the Rings" name

That, to me, is the biggest sign that all this is kayfabe.

Planes are fairly predictable, they can more or less be relied on to do that leadership asks them and not more. This stuff is more akin to nerve gas, there's no telling where it will go once deployed.

Yes, you're right. Military contractors supplying equipment that needlessly harms our own soldiers is pretty common, from what I understand. Soldiers following orders don't have much market power. "Occupational hazard", and then the brass sweeps the incidents under the rug. And paramilitary contractors are generally quite happy to supply things meant to directly hurt Americans (sonar weapons and tear gas used to attack Constitutional protests, etc). Both of these dynamics are applicable here. "AI" as it stands is a recipe for friendly fire incidents. And domestically, these capabilities will be used to turbocharge domestic surveillance as the con artist regime desperately needs ways to keep the wheels from coming off the cart.

So yes you're right, it sure is nice to imagine Anthropic setting off a wave of more military contractors acting with principles.

They are a private company they can largely sell or not sell they want. They aren’t saying they won’t build them because they are to effective they are saying they won’t build them because they aren’t safe.