[pfannkuchen]

Hmm. In the abstract, it could be argued that corporates influencing or attempting to influence the policy defined by the citizenry’s democratically elected representatives subverts the will of the people. Where the alternative isn’t that the company has to be ra ra America let’s help the government, they just have to treat the government like any other customer when it comes to doing or not doing business based on ideological differences.

It’s like citizens get one vote, and then the shareholders of that company get a much bigger vote on a per person basis.

(Please withhold boring responses about how there are lots of problems with corporations, or this current government is bad, etc etc. I know all that, I’m just playing devil’s advocate because it seems like there is a reasonable case on that side, again, in the abstract.)

[throw0101c]

> In the abstract, it could be argued that corporates influencing or attempting to influence the policy defined by the citizenry’s democratically elected representatives subverts the will of the people.

So we should make lobbying by corporations illegal? Because is not lobbying "influencing or attempting to influence" policy?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying

Further Anthropic was not trying to 'influence or attempt to influence policy': they simply had restrictions on what their service(s) could be used for, which was written into a contract that the (current) administration agreed to. The government was free to have whatever policy it wanted.

If the government didn't like the conditions of the contract then the government could try to get Anthropic to agree to change the terms, or cancel the contract all together.

As one comment put it: Can the government force a company that runs a nuclear power plant force that company to make a nuclear weapon?

If Anthropic wants non-weapon/military use of their service, and publicly states that and puts that into the terms of service, can they be forced to? Can the government force a Quaker to pick up a gun?

* https://www.renofriends.org/the-peace-testimony-and-military...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers

Or can the government force a Quaker to manufacture a gun? Force a sale of steel that the Quaker manufactures to a weapons maker? (There's a whole spectrum of 'complicity' here.)

[pfannkuchen]

> So we should make lobbying by corporations illegal?

Absolutely

> they simply had restrictions on what their service(s) could be used for

Do they have such restrictions on private parties? Also, is this common in industry generally? If I manufacture screws would it be a typical practice for me to contractually require that a buyer not use my screws in weapons, for example?

> Can the government force a company that runs a nuclear power plant force that company to make a nuclear weapon?

No, it seems like you are missing my point. I think there is an argument that the seller should be blind to who the buyer is and what they are going to do with the product they are buying.

If we don’t do that, we open up an exploit where an adversary doesn’t need to get direct control of the government, they can just pressure a small number of private companies who would deliver what the elected government wants.

Also do keep in mind that I’m playing devil’s advocate here, I don’t think democracy has functioned properly in America for quite a long time now, and it may be a delusion that it even can function with how things are set up today.

[throwawayqqq11]

> they just have to treat the government like any other customer when it comes to doing or not doing business based on ideological differences.

Which is what anthropic did? Nation states aswell as companies want to control their business involvements. The difference is, companies manipulating representatives will never be as fundamental (hopefully) as an arbitrary legal basis for governments to force companies. The orwellian angle comes from the total authoritarian one.

[UltraSane]

Anthopric is a private company that can absolutely set rules and limits on how its product is used.