[toyetic]

I'm only 25 and grew up in a post "don't be evil" world so maybe I'm jaded, but it always seems strange to me when companies try to make any moral stand about anything. Presumably if there was something a company could do to make more money they'd do it regardless of the ethical standing behind it b/c

1. The people running the company aren't stupid and want to make more money 2. The company is beholden to investors to make more money both practically and legally

IMO this means the only reason anthropic isn't adding ads is b/c they make more money posturing as the "good guys". As soon as that's no longer true not only are the people in charge going to do it, but there's probably some legal standing that would obligate/compel them to do so

[simonsarris]

A company is just a group of people. Anything a group of people can believe, a company can believe.

A company with investors is a little more suspect, its true. But even massive public companies like Costco still stake out some claims with values beyond the economic and then pursue them. It's not an impossibility.

I also think, despite dropping the motto, that Google did not in fact ever become anything close to evil. I think people are being somewhat unfair (and hyperbolic at best) by claiming otherwise.

[AtlasBarfed]

Google is a massive population monitoring and propaganda machine.

With AI and an authoritarian government they are an existential threat to humanity.

[bagacrap]

Does it matter if they are truly moral or truly cynical but think they can capture some sort of "morality premium" by taking a stance?

Yes they are beholden to investors. But so is Musk. The thing is that his investors are also his fans, so a majority of them will approve whatever tactics or schemes he comes up with.

Anthropic may be able to cultivate investors in a similar way, without even trying. After all, why would you invest in a company if you didn't agree with how it was run? Of course there could be a hostile takeover by private equity group who thinks they can squeeze more value out of the tech, but that is harder the larger the company grows.

Edit: also, the morality premium is usually enjoyed more in terms of employees than investors. Google for a long time attracted idealists, by which I mean they were able to pay slightly below market rate for a certain kind of person. If you have a moral compass and you get an equal offer from oai and anthropic right now, which one you choosing?