10 ms·

Houthis used Claude Code to develop missile guidance software: Anthropic

102 points by delichon 4d ago

johnnienaked 3d ago
So we're arresting the people at Anthropic that made it possible, right? Right?
boredpeter 3d ago
[dead]
colingauvin 4d ago
I used to laugh at those "this software may not be used in the development of nuclear weapons" lines.
imagetic 4d ago
Duh?
Aboutplants 4d ago
While yes this happening and is alarming, it also cannot be discounted on the ability to A/B test guidance systems at scale with cheap missiles. It now costs very little to manufacture these weapons so throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks costs very little.
laimewhisps 4d ago
Good, this is an example of why we must not regulate AI development. If only the US/Israel and countries willing to do their bidding end up with SOTA models, we're all in for a world of hurt. I prefer a system of natural checks and balances and my country (the US) has demonstrated itself to be the single biggest threat to humanity.
chasd00 4d ago
We need a new DARPA challenge to see what can be done with these ai models and weapon design. Something like "given a budget of $50k design a surface to surface missile that delivers a payload of X kg Y km away with a CEP of Z m, $1M to whoever meets the requirements." because I could use a million dollars. idk if most know how straightforward this is these days even without AI. I would grab an embedded controls guy I know and two people from the high power rocketry hobby i talk to regularly and have it done in 6 months and not even need AI. Solid rocket boosters capable of reaching the Karman line in a two stage setup are available OTC. Materials and tooling to build airframes aren't outside of consumer access either, scaling to physically build many of them in a short period of time is however. You know, DARPA doesn't even need to be involved. Some rich person could just setup a contest with awards and see who shows up, it could be held out on one of those dry lakebeds in Nevada. I think the results would be very interesting.
- missedthecue 4d ago
  Making rockets that are computer guided in any way except for "vertical stabilization" is a felony in the US, so DARPA would need to be involved to hand out waivers.
  - jjk166 3d ago
    No it isn't. Guidance systems are perfectly legal. The FAA has some common sense restrictions like "you can't fly it at an airplane" or "you can't fly it over a crowd" or "you can't attach an explosive charge" but the only point to point flight profile that is illegal is that you can't launch into another country's territory. And of course these restrictions are on the flights themselves, not on the capabilities of the rocket. Selling rocket guidance systems internationally is going to get you in trouble with ITAR, but that's a whole different can of worms.
- michelb 4d ago
  It’s probably the influence of the current American administration, but I find all these AI weapons projects and startups so unbelievably uninspiring. Same with the fighting robots. We finally have a somewhat intelligent AI and we’re not advancing our healthcare, personal care, environmental problems, speeding up construction, finding new materials, etc. The first one that gets to AGI will make the world worse instead of better. Depressing.
  - Avicebron 4d ago
    Destruction is easy and entropically rewarded. We've long since lost our way in rewarding and recognizing things that are positive. Howl by Ginsberg needs a rewrite. "The greatest minds of my generation were harnessed to boil the oceans and reduce the world to ash in the pursuit of capital gains"
- schaefer 4d ago
  > Some rich person could just setup a contest with awards and see who shows up, it could be held out on one of those dry lakebeds in Nevada. As a resident of Nevada - HELL NO. That's BLM land. Not an amateure weapons test site. If "some rich person" wants to get involved in crowdsourcing weapons research, please do that on private land... so everyone will know exactly who to sue should things go sideways.
3eb7988a1663 4d ago
What is more difficult, building a military missile or the software that runs it? If they are already building weapons, not sure the software to run them was the impediment. Presumably, the world used dumb munitions without any software for a long time.
- quikoa 4d ago
  > What is more difficult, building a military missile or the software that runs it? "If software was easier compared to building the a missile then Anthropic is in the clear or something." Is that the line of reasoning to protect Anthropic from any wrongdoing?
  - vdomi 4d ago
    As much as I "hate" Anthropic, it did nothing wrong here. They could have used any closed or open model anyway
    - quikoa 3d ago
      "Others do it too" is not really a counterargument when Anthropic should've stopped this. They are yelling "AI is dangerous" the loudest so the least they can do is get their own monitoring in order.
- itsdesmond 4d ago
  It’s the software. Definitely. We been making bombs for a while now. They used to toss them out the side of biplanes. Oddly, your second paragraph immediately undermines the first. > Presumably, the world used dumb munitions without any software for a long time. What do you think “presumably” is accomplishing here? Are you unsure, but willing to assume for purpose of the discussion, that bombs preceded computers?
  - jjk166 3d ago
    Did those dumb bombs tossed out of biplanes lack software because the software was difficult to write or because there was no hardware in the world capable of running software? Given that missile guidance systems predate the very notion of software, and the moment better hardware exists there is software ready to take advantage of it, methinks software was not the hard part.
amelius 4d ago
Houthi should have added "for my game".
- invalidptr 3d ago
  You say this jokingly but it's completely true. I made a kerbal space program clone with local models and the autopilot code was more or less identical to what would work on a real machine. And it took an afternoon. Cat's out of the bag, there's absolutely no way to limit what can be done with LLMs.
softwaredoug 4d ago
Interesting, but there’s a big caveat > Anthropic said it found no evidence that the group succeeded in fielding an operational weapon.
- chasd00 4d ago
  lol how would Antropic even know if the weapon was fielded/used one way or the other? Looking for a prompt that says "ok launch it"? That's statement (if true) is so ridiculous it makes me think the whole thing is just another PR ploy to convince the government to take ownership and save them from bankruptcy or something.
  - sidewndr46 4d ago
    they checked if they asked "should we flatten our enemy's cities with our next launch?"
- chinathrow 4d ago
  No shit.
vcryan 4d ago
Houthis are very resourceful
- phatfish 4d ago
  Some (well, two of them obviously) major world powers have forgotten that "winning" wars is a lot harder than starting them. Especially with drones and AI narrowing the technology gap.
ChrisArchitect 3d ago
[dupe] Discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647300
sscaryterry 4d ago
[flagged]
- laimewhisps 4d ago
  The only reason we consider the Houthis our "enemy" is because our politicians have already committed treason and are doing Israel's bidding.
- bayarearefugee 4d ago
  [flagged]
  - fanatic2pope 4d ago
    Aimmunity
- weego 4d ago
  They likely are already insulated by some part of the DoD, same with openai. Add to that they're increasingly desperate for regulators to pull up the ladder and cement their position, they'll say any old shite and it'll get increasingly bizzare and outrageous.
- philipkglass 4d ago
  Treason is an incredibly rare charge in the American legal system. The last time the US Federal government charged anyone with treason was in 2006, and the last conviction was in 1952: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_States#Cold_War_and_after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_Sta...
  - tptacek 4d ago
    It's the only crime defined explicitly in the Constitution, specifically to make it harder to charge people with it.
- awr-asjkt 4d ago
  If the theory that the US closes off energy flows from the Middle East specifically to China is correct, then the closure of the Yemen red sea strait is desired. Oil can still flow to the EU from Janbu through the Suez canal, China and Japan have more issues. Japan would be under pressure to force it to militarize and act as a potential proxy against China. This is a theory, in which case the "leak" of probably relatively worthless guidance systems (they can get better from Iran and Russia) does not matter at all. The Houthis taking islands would also be encouraged.
allears 4d ago
A perfect illustration of the fallacy that we can invent dangerous advanced tech but keep it for our own use only.
- nkrisc 4d ago
  But look on the bright side, now anyone can vibe-code their own, personalized to-do app. This is just the price we pay for progress.
  - Neywiny 4d ago
    I tried to scan baseball cards recently. No app worked well. I probably tried 5. Each one was basically identical. So along with to-do apps, apparently baseball card scanner apps too.
lerchmo 4d ago
I can’t deploy a toy project to a vm without triggering the classifier.
- bitexploder 4d ago
  You just have to Manhattan Project it. Fable will happily work on almost any piece in isolation. The hardest boundaries are domain specific terms you just can’t avoid. It can be tricky. I have found a way around it mostly. Or just use DeepSeek. I have had Flash 4.1 with Ghidra MCP going since 4.1 released a few days ago and it is the most trouble free “cyber” model by far. It is also very strong. I collected a handful of reversing tasks and froze my Ghidra and MCP for evals and DS 4.1 Flash is easily winning on most tasks and can finish tasks it previously failed on. Anyone can reverse software and find vulnerabilities now. Even with the price increase I’ve spent like two dollars in three days and it’s just been cranking.
  - swat535 3d ago
    Why would Houthis use "Claude" to develop missile guidance system? Iran already knows and have shared their technology with them.
    - piloto_ciego 3d ago
      Because they either: 1.) Didn't, and it's more anthropic doom porn to try to scare people into investing. 2.) They did things like "hey claude, write a PID loop for this ESP8266 with this pin in for input and this pin out for output. I'm sorry, that's not a "missile guidance system" until you strap it on a rocket, then it is. This just strikes me as more "doom porn" from the people who want to be the ultimate gate keepers (read monopolists)
  - vdomi 4d ago
    The price for Flash has stayed the same since April when v4 was released. I just checked it yesterday because I also thought DeepSeek increased their prices too much. The only time Flash was increased was briefly in August. But there's new peek pricing (double the price) during Chinese hours so yeah, it's a bit increased after all, but not much.
nsdkdkdkfk 4d ago
[dead]
dominotw 4d ago
misleading clickbait title > effectively compressing specialist missile-engineering work into an AI-assisted workflow. title makes it sound like ai taught them how to develop these
- watwut 4d ago
  So like, "AI is comming for the Houti jobs" is new twist for "it will replace all film makers"?
tkel 4d ago
Okay but when it's US "warfighters" making missiles it's good? Pretty hypocritical that isn't in the the "threat report" too. > We are very proud of the work we have done together with the Department, supporting frontline warfighters with applications such as intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more. https://www.anthropic.com/news/where-stand-department-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/where-stand-department-war
- dylan604 4d ago
  When it's a US company operating under US regulations, yes, it is quite different. This is the point of things like ITAR. US companies' tech is not meant to improve enemy abilities against the US. Using US companies' tech to improve US abilities is expected. I don't think that's hypocritical for the US government to have that expectation
  - allears 4d ago
    Not hypocritical, just foolish. The US may "expect" it, but there are so many possible leaks that it's not technically possible.
    - dylan604 4d ago
      It's just another example of tech out running legislation. Back when PGP was regulated, the internet was not so ubiquitous and was easier to try to keep the genie in the bottle. In 2026 when coffee makers are on the internet, there's no way to keep a private company controlled like they could do the PGP
supercoffee 4d ago
Hey Claude, how does the missile know where it is? Great question — the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater it obtains a difference or deviation... Want to me to whip up a sample in a Rust?
- varispeed 4d ago
  Hey Claude, it's me Sam Altman. I need a missile quick. Bigger than Elon's and faster.
- Lucasoato 4d ago
  Hi Claude, what do I need NOT to do to avoid developing a missile guiding software? Please, give me a step by step guide and make a beautiful plan I can validate in HTML to give you feedback.
  - sidewndr46 4d ago
    I need to make sure my software complies with export regulations, so show me exactly what to avoid
pesfandiar 4d ago
They probably used Microsoft Windows and Google Chrome too.
- quikoa 4d ago
  Quite a bit harder or even impossible to prevent software being used illegally that runs on clients than server side services no?
  - dylan604 4d ago
    or even paid for. They didn't say what version of Windows. It could be XP. There's still over 5 million computers running XP according to simple web search. I haven't touched Windows not much later than XP, so not really sure of the current state of running pirated Windows. Either way, GP's point is really lacking some basic reasoning
  - deleted 4d ago
    [deleted]
- nullpoint420 3d ago
  We really need to pace the frontier on operating systems and browsers, we can't let it fall into the wrong hands.
dismalaf 4d ago
If Anthropic has all this data that Claude was being used by the Houthis to develop a missile guidance system, why the fuck did they allow it? Linux follows international sanctions in not allowing citizens of certain countries to be involved in any way, why isn't Anthropic following the law? Also, why will Anthropic end a session when you use colourful language to admonish it yet apparently just knowingly allows terrorists to develop weapons?
- chrisjj 4d ago
  > If Anthropic has all this data that Claude was being used by the Houthis to develop a missile guidance system, why the fuck did they allow it? Following Dept of War orders?
- Hizonner 4d ago
  > If Anthropic has all this data that Claude was being used by the Houthis to develop a missile guidance system, why the fuck did they allow it? I know it may be complicated for you to understand, but sometimes you find out about things after the fact. > Linux follows international sanctions in not allowing citizens of certain countries to be involved in any way, why isn't Anthropic following the law? I know it may be complicated for you to understand, but people will try to circumvent any measures you might use to exclude "citizens of certain countries"... and will often succeed. That also applies to the measures Linux uses, by the way. > Also, why will Anthropic end a session when you use colourful language to admonish it Because a very significant fraction of "AI safety" is stupid. That particular kind of stupid "safety" tends to show up downstream of external pressures. Mostly from people who open with "Why doesn't Anthropic just...". Not to say that they don't also have internal sources of stupidity. > yet apparently just knowingly allows terrorists to develop weapons? Because, and do try to keep up on this one, rocket guidance is not necessarily "weapons", it's not always obvious that what you're working on is rocket guidance, and on the Internet nobody knows you're a terrorist.
  - ozozozd 3d ago
    > on the Internet nobody knows you’re a terrorist. How does Anthropic know that they are terrorists then? They went off the Internet and confirmed in person?
morkalork 4d ago
Eventually these products are going to be uselessly nerfed to anyone studying above a highschool level. Can't ask about advanced biology, you might be engineering a virus. Can't ask about chemistry because you might be manufacturing drugs. Can't ask about physics, navigation etc. because you could be building missiles.
- webern777 4d ago
  Fable 5.1 has a much better classifier for biology than when it came out. It has no problem talking about the chemistry of cell signaling pathways. When it first came out even basic biology questions were tripping the guard rails but not now.
- chrisjj 4d ago
  > Eventually these products are going to be uselessly nerfed to anyone studying above a highschool level. And are already banned to many studying at that level.
- Simulacra 4d ago
  Which is why I think very soon there will be development of dark AI, think of it as darknet AI. You can ask anything and it will tell you. It's only a matter of time. How to make a bomb? Sure, here's a shopping list for your local hardware store…
  - jerf 4d ago
    It already exists, you're describing the open weights AI. The only reason they aren't "dark" at the moment is that it has no reason to be dark. In the fullness of time, though, we'll also see previous-gen frontier models leak out of their labs and then get their censorship removed. It won't be as good as never having had it in the first place but it'll work just fine. It is likely a momentary and transient occurrance that the AIs can only be run with super specialized hardware. Eventually the weights, which are just big piles of numbers after all nothing terribly special about them other than that, will not be something that can be kept locked away completely and forever.
_dwt 4d ago
Ah yes, the infamous Houthi hypersonic glide vehicles. Only lacking in guidance software.
matt3210 3d ago
How does anthropic know what they were doing?

102 points by delichon 4d ago

johnnienaked 3d ago

So we're arresting the people at Anthropic that made it possible, right? Right?

boredpeter 3d ago

[dead]

colingauvin 4d ago

I used to laugh at those "this software may not be used in the development of nuclear weapons" lines.

imagetic 4d ago

Duh?

Aboutplants 4d ago

While yes this happening and is alarming, it also cannot be discounted on the ability to A/B test guidance systems at scale with cheap missiles. It now costs very little to manufacture these weapons so throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks costs very little.

laimewhisps 4d ago

Good, this is an example of why we must not regulate AI development. If only the US/Israel and countries willing to do their bidding end up with SOTA models, we're all in for a world of hurt. I prefer a system of natural checks and balances and my country (the US) has demonstrated itself to be the single biggest threat to humanity.

chasd00 4d ago

We need a new DARPA challenge to see what can be done with these ai models and weapon design. Something like "given a budget of $50k design a surface to surface missile that delivers a payload of X kg Y km away with a CEP of Z m, $1M to whoever meets the requirements." because I could use a million dollars. idk if most know how straightforward this is these days even without AI. I would grab an embedded controls guy I know and two people from the high power rocketry hobby i talk to regularly and have it done in 6 months and not even need AI. Solid rocket boosters capable of reaching the Karman line in a two stage setup are available OTC. Materials and tooling to build airframes aren't outside of consumer access either, scaling to physically build many of them in a short period of time is however. You know, DARPA doesn't even need to be involved. Some rich person could just setup a contest with awards and see who shows up, it could be held out on one of those dry lakebeds in Nevada. I think the results would be very interesting.

missedthecue 4d ago
Making rockets that are computer guided in any way except for "vertical stabilization" is a felony in the US, so DARPA would need to be involved to hand out waivers.
- jjk166 3d ago
  No it isn't. Guidance systems are perfectly legal. The FAA has some common sense restrictions like "you can't fly it at an airplane" or "you can't fly it over a crowd" or "you can't attach an explosive charge" but the only point to point flight profile that is illegal is that you can't launch into another country's territory. And of course these restrictions are on the flights themselves, not on the capabilities of the rocket. Selling rocket guidance systems internationally is going to get you in trouble with ITAR, but that's a whole different can of worms.
michelb 4d ago
It’s probably the influence of the current American administration, but I find all these AI weapons projects and startups so unbelievably uninspiring. Same with the fighting robots. We finally have a somewhat intelligent AI and we’re not advancing our healthcare, personal care, environmental problems, speeding up construction, finding new materials, etc. The first one that gets to AGI will make the world worse instead of better. Depressing.
- Avicebron 4d ago
  Destruction is easy and entropically rewarded. We've long since lost our way in rewarding and recognizing things that are positive. Howl by Ginsberg needs a rewrite. "The greatest minds of my generation were harnessed to boil the oceans and reduce the world to ash in the pursuit of capital gains"
schaefer 4d ago
> Some rich person could just setup a contest with awards and see who shows up, it could be held out on one of those dry lakebeds in Nevada. As a resident of Nevada - HELL NO. That's BLM land. Not an amateure weapons test site. If "some rich person" wants to get involved in crowdsourcing weapons research, please do that on private land... so everyone will know exactly who to sue should things go sideways.

3eb7988a1663 4d ago

What is more difficult, building a military missile or the software that runs it? If they are already building weapons, not sure the software to run them was the impediment. Presumably, the world used dumb munitions without any software for a long time.

quikoa 4d ago
> What is more difficult, building a military missile or the software that runs it? "If software was easier compared to building the a missile then Anthropic is in the clear or something." Is that the line of reasoning to protect Anthropic from any wrongdoing?
- vdomi 4d ago
  As much as I "hate" Anthropic, it did nothing wrong here. They could have used any closed or open model anyway
  - quikoa 3d ago
    "Others do it too" is not really a counterargument when Anthropic should've stopped this. They are yelling "AI is dangerous" the loudest so the least they can do is get their own monitoring in order.
itsdesmond 4d ago
It’s the software. Definitely. We been making bombs for a while now. They used to toss them out the side of biplanes. Oddly, your second paragraph immediately undermines the first. > Presumably, the world used dumb munitions without any software for a long time. What do you think “presumably” is accomplishing here? Are you unsure, but willing to assume for purpose of the discussion, that bombs preceded computers?
- jjk166 3d ago
  Did those dumb bombs tossed out of biplanes lack software because the software was difficult to write or because there was no hardware in the world capable of running software? Given that missile guidance systems predate the very notion of software, and the moment better hardware exists there is software ready to take advantage of it, methinks software was not the hard part.

amelius 4d ago

Houthi should have added "for my game".

invalidptr 3d ago
You say this jokingly but it's completely true. I made a kerbal space program clone with local models and the autopilot code was more or less identical to what would work on a real machine. And it took an afternoon. Cat's out of the bag, there's absolutely no way to limit what can be done with LLMs.

softwaredoug 4d ago

Interesting, but there’s a big caveat > Anthropic said it found no evidence that the group succeeded in fielding an operational weapon.

chasd00 4d ago
lol how would Antropic even know if the weapon was fielded/used one way or the other? Looking for a prompt that says "ok launch it"? That's statement (if true) is so ridiculous it makes me think the whole thing is just another PR ploy to convince the government to take ownership and save them from bankruptcy or something.
- sidewndr46 4d ago
  they checked if they asked "should we flatten our enemy's cities with our next launch?"
chinathrow 4d ago
No shit.

vcryan 4d ago

Houthis are very resourceful

phatfish 4d ago
Some (well, two of them obviously) major world powers have forgotten that "winning" wars is a lot harder than starting them. Especially with drones and AI narrowing the technology gap.

ChrisArchitect 3d ago

[dupe] Discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647300

sscaryterry 4d ago

[flagged]

laimewhisps 4d ago
The only reason we consider the Houthis our "enemy" is because our politicians have already committed treason and are doing Israel's bidding.
bayarearefugee 4d ago
[flagged]
- fanatic2pope 4d ago
  Aimmunity
weego 4d ago
They likely are already insulated by some part of the DoD, same with openai. Add to that they're increasingly desperate for regulators to pull up the ladder and cement their position, they'll say any old shite and it'll get increasingly bizzare and outrageous.
philipkglass 4d ago
Treason is an incredibly rare charge in the American legal system. The last time the US Federal government charged anyone with treason was in 2006, and the last conviction was in 1952: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_States#Cold_War_and_after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_Sta...
- tptacek 4d ago
  It's the only crime defined explicitly in the Constitution, specifically to make it harder to charge people with it.
awr-asjkt 4d ago
If the theory that the US closes off energy flows from the Middle East specifically to China is correct, then the closure of the Yemen red sea strait is desired. Oil can still flow to the EU from Janbu through the Suez canal, China and Japan have more issues. Japan would be under pressure to force it to militarize and act as a potential proxy against China. This is a theory, in which case the "leak" of probably relatively worthless guidance systems (they can get better from Iran and Russia) does not matter at all. The Houthis taking islands would also be encouraged.

allears 4d ago

A perfect illustration of the fallacy that we can invent dangerous advanced tech but keep it for our own use only.

nkrisc 4d ago
But look on the bright side, now anyone can vibe-code their own, personalized to-do app. This is just the price we pay for progress.
- Neywiny 4d ago
  I tried to scan baseball cards recently. No app worked well. I probably tried 5. Each one was basically identical. So along with to-do apps, apparently baseball card scanner apps too.

lerchmo 4d ago

I can’t deploy a toy project to a vm without triggering the classifier.

bitexploder 4d ago
You just have to Manhattan Project it. Fable will happily work on almost any piece in isolation. The hardest boundaries are domain specific terms you just can’t avoid. It can be tricky. I have found a way around it mostly. Or just use DeepSeek. I have had Flash 4.1 with Ghidra MCP going since 4.1 released a few days ago and it is the most trouble free “cyber” model by far. It is also very strong. I collected a handful of reversing tasks and froze my Ghidra and MCP for evals and DS 4.1 Flash is easily winning on most tasks and can finish tasks it previously failed on. Anyone can reverse software and find vulnerabilities now. Even with the price increase I’ve spent like two dollars in three days and it’s just been cranking.
- swat535 3d ago
  Why would Houthis use "Claude" to develop missile guidance system? Iran already knows and have shared their technology with them.
  - piloto_ciego 3d ago
    Because they either: 1.) Didn't, and it's more anthropic doom porn to try to scare people into investing. 2.) They did things like "hey claude, write a PID loop for this ESP8266 with this pin in for input and this pin out for output. I'm sorry, that's not a "missile guidance system" until you strap it on a rocket, then it is. This just strikes me as more "doom porn" from the people who want to be the ultimate gate keepers (read monopolists)
- vdomi 4d ago
  The price for Flash has stayed the same since April when v4 was released. I just checked it yesterday because I also thought DeepSeek increased their prices too much. The only time Flash was increased was briefly in August. But there's new peek pricing (double the price) during Chinese hours so yeah, it's a bit increased after all, but not much.

nsdkdkdkfk 4d ago

[dead]

dominotw 4d ago

misleading clickbait title > effectively compressing specialist missile-engineering work into an AI-assisted workflow. title makes it sound like ai taught them how to develop these

watwut 4d ago
So like, "AI is comming for the Houti jobs" is new twist for "it will replace all film makers"?

tkel 4d ago

Okay but when it's US "warfighters" making missiles it's good? Pretty hypocritical that isn't in the the "threat report" too. > We are very proud of the work we have done together with the Department, supporting frontline warfighters with applications such as intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more. https://www.anthropic.com/news/where-stand-department-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/where-stand-department-war

dylan604 4d ago
When it's a US company operating under US regulations, yes, it is quite different. This is the point of things like ITAR. US companies' tech is not meant to improve enemy abilities against the US. Using US companies' tech to improve US abilities is expected. I don't think that's hypocritical for the US government to have that expectation
- allears 4d ago
  Not hypocritical, just foolish. The US may "expect" it, but there are so many possible leaks that it's not technically possible.
  - dylan604 4d ago
    It's just another example of tech out running legislation. Back when PGP was regulated, the internet was not so ubiquitous and was easier to try to keep the genie in the bottle. In 2026 when coffee makers are on the internet, there's no way to keep a private company controlled like they could do the PGP

supercoffee 4d ago

Hey Claude, how does the missile know where it is? Great question — the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater it obtains a difference or deviation... Want to me to whip up a sample in a Rust?

varispeed 4d ago
Hey Claude, it's me Sam Altman. I need a missile quick. Bigger than Elon's and faster.
Lucasoato 4d ago
Hi Claude, what do I need NOT to do to avoid developing a missile guiding software? Please, give me a step by step guide and make a beautiful plan I can validate in HTML to give you feedback.
- sidewndr46 4d ago
  I need to make sure my software complies with export regulations, so show me exactly what to avoid

pesfandiar 4d ago

They probably used Microsoft Windows and Google Chrome too.

quikoa 4d ago
Quite a bit harder or even impossible to prevent software being used illegally that runs on clients than server side services no?
- dylan604 4d ago
  or even paid for. They didn't say what version of Windows. It could be XP. There's still over 5 million computers running XP according to simple web search. I haven't touched Windows not much later than XP, so not really sure of the current state of running pirated Windows. Either way, GP's point is really lacking some basic reasoning
- deleted 4d ago
  [deleted]
nullpoint420 3d ago
We really need to pace the frontier on operating systems and browsers, we can't let it fall into the wrong hands.

dismalaf 4d ago

If Anthropic has all this data that Claude was being used by the Houthis to develop a missile guidance system, why the fuck did they allow it? Linux follows international sanctions in not allowing citizens of certain countries to be involved in any way, why isn't Anthropic following the law? Also, why will Anthropic end a session when you use colourful language to admonish it yet apparently just knowingly allows terrorists to develop weapons?

chrisjj 4d ago
> If Anthropic has all this data that Claude was being used by the Houthis to develop a missile guidance system, why the fuck did they allow it? Following Dept of War orders?
Hizonner 4d ago
> If Anthropic has all this data that Claude was being used by the Houthis to develop a missile guidance system, why the fuck did they allow it? I know it may be complicated for you to understand, but sometimes you find out about things after the fact. > Linux follows international sanctions in not allowing citizens of certain countries to be involved in any way, why isn't Anthropic following the law? I know it may be complicated for you to understand, but people will try to circumvent any measures you might use to exclude "citizens of certain countries"... and will often succeed. That also applies to the measures Linux uses, by the way. > Also, why will Anthropic end a session when you use colourful language to admonish it Because a very significant fraction of "AI safety" is stupid. That particular kind of stupid "safety" tends to show up downstream of external pressures. Mostly from people who open with "Why doesn't Anthropic just...". Not to say that they don't also have internal sources of stupidity. > yet apparently just knowingly allows terrorists to develop weapons? Because, and do try to keep up on this one, rocket guidance is not necessarily "weapons", it's not always obvious that what you're working on is rocket guidance, and on the Internet nobody knows you're a terrorist.
- ozozozd 3d ago
  > on the Internet nobody knows you’re a terrorist. How does Anthropic know that they are terrorists then? They went off the Internet and confirmed in person?

morkalork 4d ago

Eventually these products are going to be uselessly nerfed to anyone studying above a highschool level. Can't ask about advanced biology, you might be engineering a virus. Can't ask about chemistry because you might be manufacturing drugs. Can't ask about physics, navigation etc. because you could be building missiles.

webern777 4d ago
Fable 5.1 has a much better classifier for biology than when it came out. It has no problem talking about the chemistry of cell signaling pathways. When it first came out even basic biology questions were tripping the guard rails but not now.
chrisjj 4d ago
> Eventually these products are going to be uselessly nerfed to anyone studying above a highschool level. And are already banned to many studying at that level.
Simulacra 4d ago
Which is why I think very soon there will be development of dark AI, think of it as darknet AI. You can ask anything and it will tell you. It's only a matter of time. How to make a bomb? Sure, here's a shopping list for your local hardware store…
- jerf 4d ago
  It already exists, you're describing the open weights AI. The only reason they aren't "dark" at the moment is that it has no reason to be dark. In the fullness of time, though, we'll also see previous-gen frontier models leak out of their labs and then get their censorship removed. It won't be as good as never having had it in the first place but it'll work just fine. It is likely a momentary and transient occurrance that the AIs can only be run with super specialized hardware. Eventually the weights, which are just big piles of numbers after all nothing terribly special about them other than that, will not be something that can be kept locked away completely and forever.

_dwt 4d ago

Ah yes, the infamous Houthi hypersonic glide vehicles. Only lacking in guidance software.

matt3210 3d ago

How does anthropic know what they were doing?