Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mft_ 31 days ago
> …they're not trustworthy. The CEO has recently started taking a stance against local AI. That must tell you something: local AI is the future.

Or… just that open-weights AI is getting good enough to present a reasonable level of threat to their business. So it popped up on a SWOT analysis and they’ve started putting a strategy together.

This doesn’t need to be anything more nefarious or untrustworthy than a company putting plans in place to deal with a competitive threat.
1 comments
soraminazuki 31 days ago
That they have a process for doing evil things doesn't make it less nefarious.
link
mft_ 31 days ago
If we define evil as a company having a strategy to deal with a competitive threat, then many/most companies in the world are evil.
link
titanomachy 31 days ago
Just like Nestlé had strategies to deal with the "competitive threat" of women breastfeeding their children instead of buying formula products. How could it be evil if it's just a corporation moving to neutralize a threat?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9#B...

link
mft_ 31 days ago
I agree that Nestle's actions are evil, based on an assessment of their actual actions and not just the fact that they have a strategy to deal with competition.

Let's go back a step. You said Anthropic are "not trustworthy" and appeared to support this by saying "The CEO has recently started taking a stance against local AI". You then said they are doing "evil things".

I'm totally prepared to accept that any company --Anthropic or otherwise-- is doing evil things, but it takes a little more justification than someone saying so, or that "The CEO has recently started taking a stance against local AI".

link
titanomachy 31 days ago
No, I didn't say those things. I'm not the person you were replying to.

But I do think that trying to create fear and uncertainty around open source in order to neutralize the competitive threat is potentially an evil (or at least not-morally-sound) strategy. I think it was pretty evil when Microsoft tried to do it against Linux.

link
soraminazuki 31 days ago
Only corporate apologists would come up with a definition of evil so useless for anything other than making strawman arguments. The criteria the rest of us use is based on harm.
link
mft_ 31 days ago
Having read what you wrote several times, I'm not sure whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me. FWIW I agree with you 100% - we should judge "evil" on clear intent, impact, actions, etc.
link