6 ms·

It is very difficult to see this move as anything other than Anthropic pulling the ladder up behind itself. They can dress it up in "safety" all they want, I fi

by zoogeny 3mo ago

It is very difficult to see this move as anything other than Anthropic pulling the ladder up behind itself. They can dress it up in "safety" all they want, I find it hard to interpret this in a charitable way. This reminds me of how dark-pattern common wisdom in Web 1.0 website development was to ban external links. Then how social apps prevented the export of data and actively worked to nerf significant interoperability through APIs. But this is a tool, not just a data moat. Like a knife that degrades your ability to create knives. Or like a text editor that prevents you from implementing a text editor.

teaearlgraycold 3mo ago
It turns out the most dangerous thing is competition.
- mips_avatar 3mo ago
  Margin compression is terrifying
- andrekandre 3mo ago
  thats because competition is only for loosers
jknoepfler 3mo ago
There is a rather specific irony in pulling up the ladder when your roof is on fire...
kingcauchy 3mo ago
It's also hard to imagine them not doing this with any of the products they're building. "You can't use Claude to build an agent because that competes with Claude Code, you can't use Claude to build a design tool because that competes with Claude Design, you can't use Claude to build an email tool because that competes with Cowork."
rzmmm 3mo ago
I think it's part of their marketing. Anthropic is not really ahead of other labs but these releases make it seem like they are reaching singularity
willsmith72 3mo ago
I don't see it as a ladder at all, unless you claim Anthropic built their own models by training off of other closed frontier models, violating those models' ToS
- reissbaker 3mo ago
  They trained their models on everyone's data on the internet, and certainly violated many website terms of service.
  - willsmith72 3mo ago
    that option is still available to everyone to be clear, I'm not saying what they did in scraping to learn was ethical. It wasn't. But I just don't see it as pulling the ladder. The ladder is still there.
    - airza 3mo ago
      I don’t know if you’ve tried to scrape or programmatically download a lot of websites recently! It’s not possible to repeat their data collection process anymore.
      - willsmith72 3mo ago
        maybe i'm just pedantic. it's possible you could only build models like these from scratch until a few years ago for that reason, but isn't that an (illegal,unethical) early mover advantage? to me ladder pulling would be: - web scraping for model training becomes illegal, with heavy punitive penalties - training models above a certain compute threshold requires government licensing - expensive third-party audits are required before deploying models above a capability threshold
    - marketingess 3mo ago
      [dead]
    - reissbaker 3mo ago
ndhbxyd 3mo ago
Only the priest is allowed into the sanctum is a rule that is as old as society. It is created for one reason but gets violated for another. The human mind is made of layers to handle predictions over different time horizons. Due to unpredictability in the universe contradictions between layers will keep arising. We make up stories to cope. So there is Control and there is Illusion of Control.
reissbaker 3mo ago
It's becoming extremely important to support open-source AI, especially legally. Anthropic is willing to go totalitarian this quickly; imagine how much worse they'd be willing to do with government-granted monopolies that ban open-source competition (like they've repeatedly pursued). It's a little shocking and gruesome how quickly they're willing to tip their hand. They want to replace all software engineering with their own product, and then silently kill anyone making competing software. What other products will they launch in the future? Better hope you aren't in a space they want into: they'll cut your legs out from under you. Oh, and training on your data from the internet? Ha ha. Terms of service apply to other people, not them. Parasites.
- sometimelurker 3mo ago
  > like they've repeatedly pursued). source?
  - reissbaker 3mo ago
    Many, many, many public policy positions; for a clear-cut example, they eventually supported SB 1047 [1] which would have banned open-sourcing any model trained with over 10^26 FLOPS (i.e. what Anthropic reportedly used to train Mythos). Their "Responsible Scaling Policy" [2] — a set of policy proposals that includes recommendations for government regulation — specifically calls out requiring "third-party controls" on model weights to prevent access; for developers to prevent "modification of models" such as fine-tuning (obviously impossible for open-source or open-weight models); prevent usage of model weights in "Automated R&D in key domains" which they specifically call out AI development as a key domain (again, obviously impossible for open-source); etc etc. They want to ban open-source AI and are not shy about it. 1: https://campustechnology.com/articles/2024/08/26/anthropic-announces-cautious-support-for-new-california-ai-regulation-legislation.aspx https://campustechnology.com/articles/2024/08/26/anthropic-a... 2: https://www.anthropic.com/responsible-scaling-policy https://www.anthropic.com/responsible-scaling-policy
    - matheusmoreira 3mo ago
      Deeply concerning. How likely is this to become reality?
AgentME 3mo ago
They believe they're going to eventually develop AI that's capable of recursive self improvement into world-redefining super-intelligence. I wouldn't expect someone in that position to risk giving away their lead. I expect we're going to see more of the top labs selectively holding back their best stuff.
- zoogeny 3mo ago
  I accept your point, in the sense that I wouldn't suggest that they have any obligation to share their own research. What seems to be different here, is that they are saying they won't let you use their tool to do your own research. It is a subtle but important difference. They aren't saying "we have secret sauce we won't share", they seem to be saying "we will prevent the tool you are paying for from independently creating a competing idea".
bigbadfeline 3mo ago
> It is very difficult to see this move as anything other than Anthropic pulling the ladder up behind itself. It's worse than that, it also exempts from examination and competition some areas of science and technology while sterilizing others and emptying them from human participation. None of this is good for anyone except a very narrow circle of people. Then, it creates a precedent where private entities decide who will be allowed access to what knowledge. Instead of government regulation, private corps will be "fighting crime" by dumbing down and spying on the people they don't like. I don't think this Soylent Green strategy is a coincidence, it's been predicted and depicted, the social forces leading there are plainly visible to anyone capable of independent thought. Open science can't come soon enough, unsubscribing is the best option until then.
root_axis 3mo ago
It's the inevitable end game. If the models ever become practically useful in a closed loop, there's no other choice except to keep the model private and use it to compete directly with their current enterprise customers.

by zoogeny 3mo ago

teaearlgraycold 3mo ago

It turns out the most dangerous thing is competition.

mips_avatar 3mo ago
Margin compression is terrifying
andrekandre 3mo ago
thats because competition is only for loosers

jknoepfler 3mo ago

There is a rather specific irony in pulling up the ladder when your roof is on fire...

kingcauchy 3mo ago

It's also hard to imagine them not doing this with any of the products they're building. "You can't use Claude to build an agent because that competes with Claude Code, you can't use Claude to build a design tool because that competes with Claude Design, you can't use Claude to build an email tool because that competes with Cowork."

rzmmm 3mo ago

I think it's part of their marketing. Anthropic is not really ahead of other labs but these releases make it seem like they are reaching singularity

willsmith72 3mo ago

I don't see it as a ladder at all, unless you claim Anthropic built their own models by training off of other closed frontier models, violating those models' ToS

reissbaker 3mo ago
They trained their models on everyone's data on the internet, and certainly violated many website terms of service.
- willsmith72 3mo ago
  that option is still available to everyone to be clear, I'm not saying what they did in scraping to learn was ethical. It wasn't. But I just don't see it as pulling the ladder. The ladder is still there.
  - airza 3mo ago
    I don’t know if you’ve tried to scrape or programmatically download a lot of websites recently! It’s not possible to repeat their data collection process anymore.
    - willsmith72 3mo ago
      maybe i'm just pedantic. it's possible you could only build models like these from scratch until a few years ago for that reason, but isn't that an (illegal,unethical) early mover advantage? to me ladder pulling would be: - web scraping for model training becomes illegal, with heavy punitive penalties - training models above a certain compute threshold requires government licensing - expensive third-party audits are required before deploying models above a capability threshold
  - marketingess 3mo ago
    [dead]
  - reissbaker 3mo ago

ndhbxyd 3mo ago

Only the priest is allowed into the sanctum is a rule that is as old as society. It is created for one reason but gets violated for another. The human mind is made of layers to handle predictions over different time horizons. Due to unpredictability in the universe contradictions between layers will keep arising. We make up stories to cope. So there is Control and there is Illusion of Control.

reissbaker 3mo ago

It's becoming extremely important to support open-source AI, especially legally. Anthropic is willing to go totalitarian this quickly; imagine how much worse they'd be willing to do with government-granted monopolies that ban open-source competition (like they've repeatedly pursued). It's a little shocking and gruesome how quickly they're willing to tip their hand. They want to replace all software engineering with their own product, and then silently kill anyone making competing software. What other products will they launch in the future? Better hope you aren't in a space they want into: they'll cut your legs out from under you. Oh, and training on your data from the internet? Ha ha. Terms of service apply to other people, not them. Parasites.

sometimelurker 3mo ago
> like they've repeatedly pursued). source?
- reissbaker 3mo ago
  Many, many, many public policy positions; for a clear-cut example, they eventually supported SB 1047 [1] which would have banned open-sourcing any model trained with over 10^26 FLOPS (i.e. what Anthropic reportedly used to train Mythos). Their "Responsible Scaling Policy" [2] — a set of policy proposals that includes recommendations for government regulation — specifically calls out requiring "third-party controls" on model weights to prevent access; for developers to prevent "modification of models" such as fine-tuning (obviously impossible for open-source or open-weight models); prevent usage of model weights in "Automated R&D in key domains" which they specifically call out AI development as a key domain (again, obviously impossible for open-source); etc etc. They want to ban open-source AI and are not shy about it. 1: https://campustechnology.com/articles/2024/08/26/anthropic-announces-cautious-support-for-new-california-ai-regulation-legislation.aspx https://campustechnology.com/articles/2024/08/26/anthropic-a... 2: https://www.anthropic.com/responsible-scaling-policy https://www.anthropic.com/responsible-scaling-policy
  - matheusmoreira 3mo ago
    Deeply concerning. How likely is this to become reality?

AgentME 3mo ago

They believe they're going to eventually develop AI that's capable of recursive self improvement into world-redefining super-intelligence. I wouldn't expect someone in that position to risk giving away their lead. I expect we're going to see more of the top labs selectively holding back their best stuff.

zoogeny 3mo ago
I accept your point, in the sense that I wouldn't suggest that they have any obligation to share their own research. What seems to be different here, is that they are saying they won't let you use their tool to do your own research. It is a subtle but important difference. They aren't saying "we have secret sauce we won't share", they seem to be saying "we will prevent the tool you are paying for from independently creating a competing idea".

bigbadfeline 3mo ago

> It is very difficult to see this move as anything other than Anthropic pulling the ladder up behind itself. It's worse than that, it also exempts from examination and competition some areas of science and technology while sterilizing others and emptying them from human participation. None of this is good for anyone except a very narrow circle of people. Then, it creates a precedent where private entities decide who will be allowed access to what knowledge. Instead of government regulation, private corps will be "fighting crime" by dumbing down and spying on the people they don't like. I don't think this Soylent Green strategy is a coincidence, it's been predicted and depicted, the social forces leading there are plainly visible to anyone capable of independent thought. Open science can't come soon enough, unsubscribing is the best option until then.

root_axis 3mo ago

It's the inevitable end game. If the models ever become practically useful in a closed loop, there's no other choice except to keep the model private and use it to compete directly with their current enterprise customers.