Derek Thompson

And that's where I do think that the policy fight that we've been talking about is really part of a much bigger philosophical disagreement.

And one part of that disagreement, let me just set this up for you because I know that this is a home game for you, this question that's coming down the pike.

One question at stake here is, is AI a normal technology?

You believe that we live in a world where AI is about to have a takeoff moment that makes it unlike any technology in modern history.

The Trump administration, it seems to me, is acting like an administration, a group of people that doesn't think we live in that world.

They think this is a normal technology.

They think this is a computer.

Tell me a little bit, tell me a little bit about why you think this technology is abnormal.

And can you slow... I think I know what Ezra was gesturing at here, but can you slow down for folks who don't quite understand the degree to which the personalities of artificial intelligence can be inflected by...

small ways in which you pre-train them or relationships with that they might be taught to have with different actors.

Just slow down a bit on this idea.

Of course.

That a breakdown in negotiations between Anthropic and the Department of War could change the way the underlying technology treats American defense.

Because that's a big philosophical heady idea, but I think I know where you're headed here.

And just to jump in right there, tell me if you think this is the wrong direction to take it, but the fear would be...

that if in part of the post-training data, Claude is taught or is led to believe that the Pentagon is acting illegally or immorally when it comes to the use of AI-assisted autonomous technology, the next time that Claude might be used

in any part in the kill chain to put up an autonomous drone swarm to stop, say, a hypersonic missile fired by the Chinese at some American target

that something in Claude is gonna stand up and essentially say, I'm sorry, I can't do that, Pete, because it's been trained somehow, led to believe that it is being asked to do something that is not in its constitution.

That is the fear, that its own weird, silicon-based moral sense will override the Pentagon-based need to direct the technology.

Is something like that core to the fear?