Rob Wiblin

In the current contract, Anthropic couldn't cut the military off from Clawed suddenly, even if they really objected to how it was being used.

And the government has now accepted the same conditions for contract termination from OpenAI that was supposedly completely intolerable from Anthropic just a month ago.

Plus, a far-sighted secretary of defense might actually welcome contractual barriers against certain uses of AI, not because they think they would abuse the technology, presumably they trust themselves, but because they see value in guardrails that could limit a less scrupulous secretary of defense down the road.

And if we're making appeals to democratic self-government, it's worth noting how the public actually feels about this issue.

A YouGov economist poll found that Americans are nearly twice as likely to support AI companies restricting military use of their tools as to say the military should be able to use them however it wants.

The public actually wants these restrictions placed on their own government.

Is it really so democratic to deny the people what they want?

But the fundamental issue here is a different one.

Lucky is using the vague expression believe in democracy to equivocate between two entirely different things.

Yes, democracy requires that the public get to choose its leaders and that those leaders get to make decisions about national security.

But no, it does not require that any private individual must supply their labour and their products for any purpose the government demands on terms entirely set by the government on pain of destruction.

As one Twitter joker put it, remember, you should do whatever the government wants, even things you think are immoral, because otherwise you're deciding what you do instead of the government, which is undemocratic.

Of course, the reverse is closer to the truth.

Being compelled to personally work on projects you oppose or face crushing government retaliation is clearly not required for democracy to exist, and it's undemocratic countries like China and North Korea where the state demands a right to make you offers you can't refuse on any topic of their choice.

There's a common thread across all three of these charges.

In each case, an abstract principle that sounds kind of reasonable gets invoked in a way that diverts attention from both common sense and what's actually going on.

You want a government involvement in AI becomes a reason you can't object to any government action on AI.

Powerful states will inevitably assert control over powerful technology becomes a reason we just have to lie down and accept whatever form that assertion takes.

And democratic leaders should make decisions about national security becomes a reason no person or company can ever set terms when they sell things to the government.

These questions are going to come up more and more because AI really is becoming much more powerful and governments are going to have to be involved in governing it in some form or other.