What everyone is missing about Anthropic vs the Pentagon. And: The Meta leaks are worse than you think.
episodePreviously titled “Is there a case against Anthropic? And: The Meta leaks are worse than you think.” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 4, 2026
Transcript
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What are the main accusations against Anthropic regarding its dispute with the Pentagon?
Today we're releasing two essays by me back to back.
How does hypocrisy factor into the debate over Anthropic's actions?
First we've got one about whether Anthropic is being hypocritical, naive or undemocratic in its dispute with the Pentagon. And then there's a second shorter and sweeter one covering some extraordinary leaks from Meta regarding their treatment of ads for frauds and scams. And what I think that demonstrates about regulating big tech, especially AI companies.
What arguments support the claim that Anthropic is being naive?
Enjoy! I've spent years calling for more government oversight of frontier AI development. So am I a hypocrite for opposing the Pentagon's attempt to commit corporate murder against Anthropic? That's what I've heard. As venture capitalist Marc Andreessen put it on Twitter, every single person who was in favor of government control of AI is now, suddenly, opposed to government control of AI.
Why do critics argue that Anthropic's stance is undemocratic?
It's a natural way to think, but it's also completely wrong. And I want to explain why it's wrong, because you see the same underlying confusion all over the place. It's not just hypocrisy, though. I count at least three distinct charges critics have levelled at Anthropic and people who support them in their dispute with the Pentagon.
What are the implications of the Meta leaks on social media regulation?
I mentioned the hypocrisy charge, but there's a separate accusation of naivete, that when you're building something as powerful as AI, the state will inevitably crush you if you try to set conditions on their use of it. And so Anthropic was in the wrong to pick this fight. And third, there's an accusation of being undemocratic, that a private company has no business telling the elected government what it can and can't do with military technology.
How much revenue is Meta generating from fraudulent ads?
I'm going to take each of these charges seriously and explain where I think they go wrong and why. Let's dive in.
What are the proposed solutions to combat scams on social media?
Let's start with hypocrisy because it's the charge I hear most often and the most straightforward of the three. Just to quickly jog your memory about the dispute we're talking about.
Should AI companies be regulated like banks?
Anthropic had a contract with the Pentagon that included two restrictions on the use of their AI. No mass domestic surveillance and no decisions to kill people made by artificial intelligence alone. The Trump administration demanded those restrictions be removed, Anthropic refused, and rather than merely ending the contract, which people by and large agree would have been fine, Secretary of War and Defense Pete Hegseth declared Anthropic a supply chain risk, a designation previously used only for foreign adversaries, in so doing threatening the company's ability to do much business in the United States at all. The case to overturn that designation has attracted support from expected allies and unexpected ones alike, including Antarctic's competitors OpenAI and Microsoft, as well as conservative technology experts, who for the most part otherwise agree with the Trump administration's approach to AI.
For years, people in the AI safety world, absolutely including me, have argued that frontier AI is too important and too dangerous to leave entirely in the hands of private companies. We've called for government oversight, safety standards, a wide range of different things. So the hypocrisy logic runs. You want a government control of AI. Well, now you've got government control of AI, so why complain? But state the obvious. Supporting public oversight of frontier AI training doesn't require you to support the government's strong-arming a company into allowing its product to be used for domestic mass surveillance. These views just on its face, they're not even intention. Of course, people don't only care who decides who has control over AI.
They also care what they decide and what they decide to do. I might support legislation that allows the leader of a city's fire service to close streets for public safety. But if that fire chief started closing arbitrary streets and demanding bribes to pass through them, I wouldn't be a hypocrite for opposing that as well. The reason people get confused here is because I think they're mentally compressing something extremely multidimensional down into a single axis of variation.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the main accusations against Anthropic regarding its dispute with the Pentagon?
0:01–0:04
2
How does hypocrisy factor into the debate over Anthropic's actions?
0:04–0:22
3
What arguments support the claim that Anthropic is being naive?
0:22–0:42
4
Why do critics argue that Anthropic's stance is undemocratic?
0:42–0:56
5
What are the implications of the Meta leaks on social media regulation?
0:56–1:16
6
How much revenue is Meta generating from fraudulent ads?
1:16–1:22
7
What are the proposed solutions to combat scams on social media?
1:22–1:30
8
Should AI companies be regulated like banks?
1:30–20:33
Speakers
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