alt Hacker NewsI know this is necessarily a very unpopular opinion however.
I think HN in particular as a crowd are very vulnerable to the halo effect and group think when it comes to Anthropic.
Even being generous they are only very minimally a "better actor" than OpenAI.
However, we are so enthralled by their product that we tend to let the view bleed over to their ethics.
Saying we want out tools used in line with the US constitution within the US on one particular point. Is hardly a high moral bar, it's self preservation.
All Anthropic have said is:
1. No mass domestic surveillance of Americans.
2. No fully autonomous lethal weapons yet.
My goodness that's what passes for a high moral standard? Really anything that doesn't hit those very carefully worded points is not "evil"?
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Well, they did stand up to the US administration and lost a lot of money in the process. That takes courage. They clearly were being bullied into compliance, and they stood their ground.
You can see the significance of this is you look at German Nazi history. If more companies had stood up to the administration, the Nazi state would have been significantly harder to build.
In my opinion, what Anthropic did is not a small thing at all.
Let's not forget they also lobby to forbid models from China and pretend that distillation is stealing. but somehow just because they said no to two points the majority of HN folks think them as virtuous.
Lets generalise a bit more here - every company at any time could completely heel-turn and do awful things. Even my favourite private companies (e.g. Valve) have done things that I would consider evil.
However, I would think I'm not alone in that I'm generally wanting to do good while also wanting convenience, I know that really every bit of consumption I do is probably negative in some ways, and there is no real "apolitical" action anyone can take.
But can't I at least get annoyed and take my money somewhere else for the short amount of time another company is doing it better?
Yes, if openAI suddenly leaps forwards with codex and pounds anthropic into the dust, I'll likely switch back despite my moral grievances, but in a situation where I can get mildly motivated to jump over for something that - to me - seems like a better morality without much punishment to me, I'll do it.