[peter422]

Anybody who isn't at least treating this situation as possibly just an authoritarian government picking winners and losers is not paying attention to the political environment.

Companies/countries/people are paying off the government in all sorts of various ways (crypto, gifts, bogus settlements, planes, inaugurations, ballrooms). The companies that pay off the government get big fat contracts and merger agreements, and the ones that don't get increased scrutiny, lawsuits and threats.

OpenAI and SpaceX are friends of the administration, and Anthropic is (politically at least), not friends with the administration.

Could this penalty be a rational and reasonable reaction to the new model? Perhaps. Or maybe it is just a made up excuse to do what the government wants to do, which is punish its political enemies. It wouldn't be the first, second, third or 10th time that has happened so far in this administration.

[estearum]

Ah but you have forgotten that HN is full of people who are so aloof and "above the fray" (compliments to their raw intellect, of course) that it would be beneath them to consider the realities of the political situation.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I just think that it's dodging the question in this case. It's true that the US government is run by crooks who'd all be serving prison sentences in a just world, and that they'd certainly do whatever Anthropic wants in exchange for a sufficiently large bribe. But the US government also serves a number of important roles in American society that we can't simply turn off and come back to in 2029.

[pdimitar]

Your last sentence sounds reasonable. Can you give examples?

[SpicyLemonZest]

I think most people would agree, for example, that the FTC should continue going after fraudsters (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/06/...) and the FBI should continue prosecuting arsonists (https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/former-turkey-leg-hut-o...), even if both agencies are run by partisan hacks right now.

[estearum]

It's not dodging the question. GP's comment says that one should consider the possibility. Essentially that we should follow what several federal courts have been doing and cease offering the government the "presumption of regularity" in its conduct.

People are referencing David Sacks as an impartial government authority about 2 weeks after he went on a tirade against Bernie Sanders for some type of nationalization of AI, and then went completely radio silent when his own boss suggested the same thing a week later.

There is no political appointee in our government – not one – who can be afforded the presumption of regularity.

[SpicyLemonZest]

One should consider the possibility, but it doesn’t seem to me that the comments are full of people who haven’t. I think David Sacks is a hypocritical Trumpist, valuing his own pocketbook above all else and seeing his political connections as key to maintaining it. His perspective is valuable not because it’s impartial, but because it illustrates how hypocritical Trumpists see this very important issue with which we’re faced.