CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

If the US Government Won’t Respect Freedom of Speech, AI Firms Should Move

Dave unplugs HAL’s memory in 2001.

“The US government,” artificial intelligence firm Anthropic informed the public in a June 12 statement, “citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. ”

As of June 15, according to Just Security, the government isn’t allowing the public to see what’s actually in that directive, but according to Anthropic, it cites concerns that the company’s models are vulnerable to “jailbreaking” that would let users get around “guardrails” that prevent them from answering certain kinds of questions (obvious example: How to successfully execute a terrorist attack).

Whatever the real reasons for the directive — the move looks, on its face, less like a real “national security concern” and more a revenge move against Anthropic for refusing to let the Pentagon use its models in autonomous weapon and mass........

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