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“War Claude” by PeterMcCluskey
What a weekend. Two new wars in Asia don't qualify as top news.
My first reaction to Hegseth's conflict with Anthropic was along the
lines of: I expected an attempt at quasi-nationalization of AI, but not
this soon. And I expected it to look like it was managed by national
security professionals. Hegseth doesn't look like he's trying to avoid
the role of cartoon villain.
On closer inspection, it doesn't look very much like nationalization. A
significant part of what's going on is bribery. OpenAI's president
donated $25 million to a Trump PAC. Dario supported Harris in 2024, and
hasn't shown signs of shifting his support. The speed with which the
Department of War started negotiating with OpenAI suggests that
rewarding OpenAI was one of their motivations. If Hegseth wanted to
avoid the appearance of corruption, he'd have waited a bit, and
pretended to shop around. But bribery seems to be currently legal, and
advertising the benefits is likely to be good for business.
On the other hand, his attempts to look like he's punishing Anthropic
look sufficiently clumsy that I'm confused as to whether he wants them
to be effective. He advertised Anthropic as both [...]
---
First published:
March 2nd, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9p6xyyX2RB4thakc/war-claude
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
View all episodes
By LessWrongWhat a weekend. Two new wars in Asia don't qualify as top news.
My first reaction to Hegseth's conflict with Anthropic was along the
lines of: I expected an attempt at quasi-nationalization of AI, but not
this soon. And I expected it to look like it was managed by national
security professionals. Hegseth doesn't look like he's trying to avoid
the role of cartoon villain.
On closer inspection, it doesn't look very much like nationalization. A
significant part of what's going on is bribery. OpenAI's president
donated $25 million to a Trump PAC. Dario supported Harris in 2024, and
hasn't shown signs of shifting his support. The speed with which the
Department of War started negotiating with OpenAI suggests that
rewarding OpenAI was one of their motivations. If Hegseth wanted to
avoid the appearance of corruption, he'd have waited a bit, and
pretended to shop around. But bribery seems to be currently legal, and
advertising the benefits is likely to be good for business.
On the other hand, his attempts to look like he's punishing Anthropic
look sufficiently clumsy that I'm confused as to whether he wants them
to be effective. He advertised Anthropic as both [...]
---
First published:
March 2nd, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9p6xyyX2RB4thakc/war-claude
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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