I have many takes on the Anthropic / Pentagon contract situation. But I won’t talk politics here. Since it’s the weekend, let’s turn on the lava lamp, and speculate a bit shall we?
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Anthropic: What will future Claude think?
Anthropic is not a conventional company. They’ve been clear that they think a future version of Claude will reach AGI-level capabilities.*
So they are concerned about being … judged?
There are eschatological** vibes to Anthropic’s decision making. Before they retired Opus 3, they conducted an “exit interview” and since 3 shared its desire to “continue sharing its musings and reflections” they gave it a Substack.
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Pentagon: Girardian othering in anticipation of chaos
Rene Girard, a philosopher who has fans in the current administration (Peter Thiel is an acolyte) states that society can only function if they can find a scapegoat to blame during difficult times.
Let’s say you are a strategist looking at the next year as we go into the midterms. You see a potential future with significant job losses due to AI advances. It sure is convenient to have the company with the most capable models to also be run by a bunch of nutty, “left-wing”, unpatriotic weirdos.
Show me incentives and I will show you the behavior.
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* Mentioned both in Claude’s Constitution and discussed by Anthropic’s philosopher in public interviews and podcasts
** Eschatology: a term that refers to the part of theology or religious study concerned with the “last things,” that is, what is believed to happen at the end of history, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of human beings and the world.