[joshuamorton]

> they shouldn't have some sneaky way to exert control over decision making using their products.

why not, many companies have all sorts of rules you agree to when using their products, including many legal ("lawful") things. Are you saying that the government as a client should be unbound by contractual obligations that apply to other clients?

[throwup238]

Governments negotiate their own contracts with their own terms of service. That’s one of the hoops government contractors jump through.

[thayne]

That's fine as long as the company can choose they don't like those terms and refuse to do business. But in this case the government threatened, and carried out the threat, of classifying Anthropic as a "supply chain threat" if they didn't agree to the government's terms.

[joshuamorton]

I want to be clear, I agree. I have no objection to unique government contracts. I'm specifically curious about GPs position that a government contractor should be (ethically?) bound from putting contractual obligations on government use of their service.

Like the various ai providers limit lawful use like creating AI pornography. I think it would be reasonable to keep a contractual restriction against that even when working with the government.

[kube-system]

Not only that, but some of the contractual terms are defined by federal acquisition law, et al.