"But notice what that position concedes: If companies only deserve protection when their positions are “correct,” the only question is who decides what correct is. Right now, that’s the Trump administration and liberals need a principled objection, not just a policy disagreement over this specific case." Hear, hear!
Governments should not pick "winners and losers" or favor one company over another. On Anthropic I think their decision to hold firm is admirable.
But I understand OpenAI's decision to take advantage.
Long term, Anthropic's decision will hold them in good stead with customers. OpenAi may need revenues more quickly to survive.
And if what the DoD proposes to do is against the constitution, that will be for the courts to decide. We might not like the decision but it's the recourse we have left.
I'm curious how this interacts with stuff like baking a cake for a gay wedding. Or even broader things like housing and hiring discrimination - how "red lines" written about here could transform into "red-lining" discrimination. (heh see what I did there?)
These are all broadly under the umbrella of freedom of enterprise, but there are points where the different rights would run into each other.
I think this is why a lot of liberals have treated freedom of enterprise as a "second-class right" as you put it. A lot of people see these cases and work to prevent discrimination first and the enterprise second.
The rise of zero sum thinking on the left has been one of the worst developments during the post-Obama era. Bernie Sanders got it going, but Elizabeth Warren has had the biggest influence on staffing. It all began with her going after Antonio Weiss. She’s made it her mission to keep away anyone with a business background from working in Democratic Party circles. She did everything she could to get her people hired in the Biden administration and was very successful. She’s now going after Reid Hoffman and trying to drive away everyone from the tech sector.
There's a laundry list of reasons to avoid handing the state the "heavy handed" power Jerusalem describes here. Our elections aren't fantastic methods of determining what the public wants outside of a narrow few issues, and even worse at determining what would actually be a good policy. Implementation is constantly fraught due to poor incentives for bureaucrats and legislators, and recourse against the abuse of power is even harder to come by because of rent seeking.
But I loved this essay because it skipped those consequentialist arguments, and went straight to the more important one - a moral defense of free enterprise.
I am reminded of Robert Reich's quote saying "If you can’t afford to pay your employees a living wage, you do not have a viable business model" (https://x.com/RBReich/status/1390714323119624198). There is a belief in more populist groups that the only institutions in society should be ones that support some sort of "common good". Someone attempting to simply profit by providing things others want at a mutually agreeable cost is inherently suspect if they're not leveraging their business to achieve some group's perceived interests as well. It's demanded that you put the interests of others before yourself, which is fundamentally anathema to classical liberal principles and a free society.
If you are not free to pursue your own interests, unless those interests line up with the state or however poorly we want to define "society", then you are not truly free. Think of every time someone says that hate speech isn't free speech - it is impossible to objectively determine what is "hate speech" so you're simply imposing preferences, which destroys the point of free speech to begin with. It is the same with commerce - no common good preference is objective truth, and so people must be free to pursue their own ends. Anthropic deserves to exist even if it does not serve the whims of the Department of War, just as McDonalds deserves to exist even if it does not pay employees whatever number of dollars an hour Bernie Sanders is up to at this point, just as US companies deserve to charter with cheaper and more reliable foreign shipping companies instead of being forced to pay for overpriced and low quality Jones Act shipping, just as US consumers deserve to purchase freely instead of being punished for not buying from American companies with tariffs.
You know The Argument is a great publication because there is a laundry list of singular essays that make the subscription cost worth it alone. Add this one to the list.
I know your article is about free enterprise away from state meddling in capricious terms...but how would you navigate whether the DPA should apply to a llm above a certain threshold of ability? Are their abilities security risks by existing in a feee market? Is it too speculative to say and you have to ex post decide on consequences?
One way I've thought about this is the DPA wouldn't allow this authority bc the DoD will most likely have a contract with something of that capability, therefore the authority needs to come from a new law that is explicitly for this.
I heard the Anthropic CEO talk to Ezra Klein and he (the CEO of Anthropic) seems to think maybe Claude is conscious (because it does things they program it to do) so he’s basically making irrational decisions based on a fundamental misunderstanding of his core product and its utility.
Their official corporate answer to this is “No, we don’t think Claude is ‘alive’ like humans or any other biological organisms. Asking whether they’re ‘alive’ is not a helpful framing for understanding them, as it typically refers to a fuzzy set of physiological, reproductive, and evolutionary characteristics.” Instead, he believes that “Claude, and other AI models, are a new kind of entity altogether.” From a story on The Verge last week. They’re all losing it over there.
"But notice what that position concedes: If companies only deserve protection when their positions are “correct,” the only question is who decides what correct is. Right now, that’s the Trump administration and liberals need a principled objection, not just a policy disagreement over this specific case." Hear, hear!
Really great essay,
Governments should not pick "winners and losers" or favor one company over another. On Anthropic I think their decision to hold firm is admirable.
But I understand OpenAI's decision to take advantage.
Long term, Anthropic's decision will hold them in good stead with customers. OpenAi may need revenues more quickly to survive.
And if what the DoD proposes to do is against the constitution, that will be for the courts to decide. We might not like the decision but it's the recourse we have left.
I'm curious how this interacts with stuff like baking a cake for a gay wedding. Or even broader things like housing and hiring discrimination - how "red lines" written about here could transform into "red-lining" discrimination. (heh see what I did there?)
These are all broadly under the umbrella of freedom of enterprise, but there are points where the different rights would run into each other.
I think this is why a lot of liberals have treated freedom of enterprise as a "second-class right" as you put it. A lot of people see these cases and work to prevent discrimination first and the enterprise second.
The rise of zero sum thinking on the left has been one of the worst developments during the post-Obama era. Bernie Sanders got it going, but Elizabeth Warren has had the biggest influence on staffing. It all began with her going after Antonio Weiss. She’s made it her mission to keep away anyone with a business background from working in Democratic Party circles. She did everything she could to get her people hired in the Biden administration and was very successful. She’s now going after Reid Hoffman and trying to drive away everyone from the tech sector.
There's a laundry list of reasons to avoid handing the state the "heavy handed" power Jerusalem describes here. Our elections aren't fantastic methods of determining what the public wants outside of a narrow few issues, and even worse at determining what would actually be a good policy. Implementation is constantly fraught due to poor incentives for bureaucrats and legislators, and recourse against the abuse of power is even harder to come by because of rent seeking.
But I loved this essay because it skipped those consequentialist arguments, and went straight to the more important one - a moral defense of free enterprise.
I am reminded of Robert Reich's quote saying "If you can’t afford to pay your employees a living wage, you do not have a viable business model" (https://x.com/RBReich/status/1390714323119624198). There is a belief in more populist groups that the only institutions in society should be ones that support some sort of "common good". Someone attempting to simply profit by providing things others want at a mutually agreeable cost is inherently suspect if they're not leveraging their business to achieve some group's perceived interests as well. It's demanded that you put the interests of others before yourself, which is fundamentally anathema to classical liberal principles and a free society.
If you are not free to pursue your own interests, unless those interests line up with the state or however poorly we want to define "society", then you are not truly free. Think of every time someone says that hate speech isn't free speech - it is impossible to objectively determine what is "hate speech" so you're simply imposing preferences, which destroys the point of free speech to begin with. It is the same with commerce - no common good preference is objective truth, and so people must be free to pursue their own ends. Anthropic deserves to exist even if it does not serve the whims of the Department of War, just as McDonalds deserves to exist even if it does not pay employees whatever number of dollars an hour Bernie Sanders is up to at this point, just as US companies deserve to charter with cheaper and more reliable foreign shipping companies instead of being forced to pay for overpriced and low quality Jones Act shipping, just as US consumers deserve to purchase freely instead of being punished for not buying from American companies with tariffs.
You know The Argument is a great publication because there is a laundry list of singular essays that make the subscription cost worth it alone. Add this one to the list.
I know your article is about free enterprise away from state meddling in capricious terms...but how would you navigate whether the DPA should apply to a llm above a certain threshold of ability? Are their abilities security risks by existing in a feee market? Is it too speculative to say and you have to ex post decide on consequences?
One way I've thought about this is the DPA wouldn't allow this authority bc the DoD will most likely have a contract with something of that capability, therefore the authority needs to come from a new law that is explicitly for this.
I heard the Anthropic CEO talk to Ezra Klein and he (the CEO of Anthropic) seems to think maybe Claude is conscious (because it does things they program it to do) so he’s basically making irrational decisions based on a fundamental misunderstanding of his core product and its utility.
What makes you think this is a fundamental misunderstanding?
Their official corporate answer to this is “No, we don’t think Claude is ‘alive’ like humans or any other biological organisms. Asking whether they’re ‘alive’ is not a helpful framing for understanding them, as it typically refers to a fuzzy set of physiological, reproductive, and evolutionary characteristics.” Instead, he believes that “Claude, and other AI models, are a new kind of entity altogether.” From a story on The Verge last week. They’re all losing it over there.