>For instance, an agency could pay for a subscription or negotiate a pay-per-use contract with an AI provider, only to find out that it is prohibited from using the AI model in certain ways, limiting its value.
This is of course quite false. They of course know the restriction when they sign the contract.
Are government agencies sending prompts to model inference APIs on remote servers? Or are they running the models in their own environment?
It’s worrying to me that Anthropic, a foreign corporation (EDIT: they’re a US corp), would even have the visibility necessary to enforce usage restrictions on US government customers. Or are they baking the restrictions into the model weights?
This feels like a hit piece by semafor. A lot of the information in there is purely false. For example, Microsoft's AI Agreemeent says (prohibits):
"...cannot use...For ongoing surveillance or real-time or near real-time identification or persistent tracking of the individual using any of their personal data, including biometric data, without the individual’s valid consent."
First, contracts often come with usage restrictions.
Second, this article is incredibly dismissive and whiny about anyone ever taking safety seriously, for pretty much any definition of "safety". I mean, it even points out that Anthropic has "the only top-tier models cleared for top secret security situations", which seems like a direct result of them actually giving a shit about safety in the first place.
And the whining about "the contract says we can't use it for surveillance, but we want to use it for good surveillance, so it doesn't count. Their definition of surveillance is politically motivated and bad"! It's just... wtf? Is it surveillance or not?
This isn't a partisan thing. It's barely a political thing. It's more like "But we want to put a Burger King logo on the syringe we use for lethal injections! Why are you upset? We're the state so it's totally legal to be killing people this way, so you have to let us use your stuff however we want."
No judgement here, but a US-based corporation refusing services to the US Government?
While the terms of service are what they are, the US Government can withdraw its military contracts from Anthropic (or refuse future contracts if they don't have any so far). Or softly suggest to its own contractors to limit their business dealings with Anthropic. Then Anthropic will have hard time securing computing from NVIDIA, AWS, Google, MSFT, Oracle, etc...
I'm sure this sort of unofficial blacklisting is fairly common, but it does seem very opposed to the idea of a free market. It definitely doesn't seem like Anthropic was trying to make some sort of point here, but it would be cool if all the AI companies had a ToS saying it can't be used for any sort of defense/police/military purposes
I am of an age where I read comments like this with my mouth agape. It is (was) perfectly normal to choose whether or not to do business with the government.
There's absolutely a need for personal attacks. By suggesting that people ought to just give in and accept this as the new reality, you are supporting it, and you need to know that this represents a severe moral flaw. You're not just being pragmatic, or realistic, or whatever polite fiction you tell yourself to avoid having to take a stand. You're being a bad person, intentionally doing your part to make the country worse in the hopes that you can be a little more comfortable. Change your ways now or you'll bear the shame the rest of your life.
Wasn't a big part of AI 2027 that government employees became overly reliant on AI and couldn't function without it. So guess we are still on track to hit that timeline.
By using the Apple Software, you represent and warrant that you ... also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. -- iTunes
No production of missiles with iTunes? Curses, foiled again.
> The policy doesn’t specifically define what it means by “domestic surveillance” in a law enforcement context and appears to be using the term broadly, creating room for interpretation.
> Other AI model providers also list restrictions on surveillance, but offer more specific examples and often have carveouts for law enforcement activities. OpenAI’s policy, for instance, prohibits “unauthorized monitoring of individuals,” implying consent for legal monitoring by law enforcement.
This is unintentionally (for the author) hilarious. It's a blatant misinterpretation of the language, while complimenting the clarity of the lanuage. Who "authorizes" "monitoring of individuals"? If an executive agency monitors an individual in violation of a court order, is that "authorized" ?
"Eventually, though, its politics could end up hurting its government business."
Good? What if, and I know how crazy this sounds, not using AI to surveil people was a more desirable goal than the success of yet another tech company at locking in government pork and subsidies?
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 48.4 ms ] threadViva local-first software!
>For instance, an agency could pay for a subscription or negotiate a pay-per-use contract with an AI provider, only to find out that it is prohibited from using the AI model in certain ways, limiting its value.
This is of course quite false. They of course know the restriction when they sign the contract.
It’s worrying to me that Anthropic, a foreign corporation (EDIT: they’re a US corp), would even have the visibility necessary to enforce usage restrictions on US government customers. Or are they baking the restrictions into the model weights?
"...cannot use...For ongoing surveillance or real-time or near real-time identification or persistent tracking of the individual using any of their personal data, including biometric data, without the individual’s valid consent."
Second, this article is incredibly dismissive and whiny about anyone ever taking safety seriously, for pretty much any definition of "safety". I mean, it even points out that Anthropic has "the only top-tier models cleared for top secret security situations", which seems like a direct result of them actually giving a shit about safety in the first place.
And the whining about "the contract says we can't use it for surveillance, but we want to use it for good surveillance, so it doesn't count. Their definition of surveillance is politically motivated and bad"! It's just... wtf? Is it surveillance or not?
This isn't a partisan thing. It's barely a political thing. It's more like "But we want to put a Burger King logo on the syringe we use for lethal injections! Why are you upset? We're the state so it's totally legal to be killing people this way, so you have to let us use your stuff however we want."
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/anthropic-o...
While the terms of service are what they are, the US Government can withdraw its military contracts from Anthropic (or refuse future contracts if they don't have any so far). Or softly suggest to its own contractors to limit their business dealings with Anthropic. Then Anthropic will have hard time securing computing from NVIDIA, AWS, Google, MSFT, Oracle, etc...
This won't last.
Would you rather pretend that things like that aren't happening?
By using the Apple Software, you represent and warrant that you ... also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. -- iTunes
No production of missiles with iTunes? Curses, foiled again.
> Other AI model providers also list restrictions on surveillance, but offer more specific examples and often have carveouts for law enforcement activities. OpenAI’s policy, for instance, prohibits “unauthorized monitoring of individuals,” implying consent for legal monitoring by law enforcement.
This is unintentionally (for the author) hilarious. It's a blatant misinterpretation of the language, while complimenting the clarity of the lanuage. Who "authorizes" "monitoring of individuals"? If an executive agency monitors an individual in violation of a court order, is that "authorized" ?
Good? What if, and I know how crazy this sounds, not using AI to surveil people was a more desirable goal than the success of yet another tech company at locking in government pork and subsidies?
I do love the smell of hypocrisy early in the morning.