Anthropic Employees Accuse Trump Administration of Targeting Them
- Reference: 0183944830
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/17/1737246/anthropic-employees-accuse-trump-administration-of-targeting-them
- Source link:
> Inside the company, employees' private group chats immediately lit up. Managers were instructed to prepare customers for a potential service disruption to the models, called Fable 5 and Mythos 5. But the messaging kept changing, with workers initially being told that the security problem was the ability of foreign companies to gain access to the systems, and later that a major vulnerability had been discovered in the models.
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> In employee chats, Anthropic engineers asked one another if the company's plan to go public this year would be harmed by the White House directive. Many shared news reports that offered conflicting information about why the White House had ordered Anthropic to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals. "What are you telling your clients?" one employee asked in a chat viewed by The New York Times. Another said, "Does anyone know what to believe?" In another message, a worker said, "I don't understand what the issue is."
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> Six days later, Anthropic's roughly 3,000 employees still have few answers. The San Francisco company is continuing to grapple with internal confusion as Dario Amodei, the chief executive, and some of his lieutenants meet with the Trump administration to try and resolve the situation. But after discussions on Monday and Tuesday, there was no breakthrough over ending the U.S. order to limit access to the company's new A.I. models. In a statement on Monday, Anthropic said it would continue meeting with government officials and pledged its "ongoing commitment to working alongside the administration."
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> The dispute highlights how singular Anthropic has become in Washington. It was the second time in six months that the fast-growing A.I. start-up has become embroiled in a fight with the Trump administration over its powerful technologies, even as other A.I. companies offer similar models that have not received the same attention. And it has left Anthropic's employees in what they described as a holding pattern, with some wondering if they were being picked on by President Trump. "Are we being bullied based on bad vibes?" one employee asked in a chat viewed by The Times.
Yesterday, TechCrunch's Zack Whittaker argued that the move [4]sets a troubling precedent : the government can unilaterally disrupt American software products without court approval, potentially undermining trust in U.S. AI providers.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/technology/anthropic-trump-administration-fable.html
[2] https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/06/15/2128216/cybersecurity-vets-protest-dangerous-us-government-ban-on-anthropics-most-powerful-models
[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/05/01/1658212/gpt-55-matches-heavily-hyped-mythos-preview-in-new-cybersecurity-tests
[4] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/16/1651237/the-us-governments-anthropic-models-ban-was-never-about-an-ai-jailbreak
Loyalty (Score:2, Troll)
Loyalty is currently more precious than ethics. So I would not be surprised if the [1]DoD spat [wikipedia.org] over war purposes and surveillance is what has put them on the wrong side of the administration. As compared to xAI that's getting [2]shielded [theguardian.com] by [3]the administration [breitbart.com] for it's submissive participation in the Iran war.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic%E2%80%93United_States_Department_of_Defense_dispute
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/16/elon-musk-xai-datacenters-trump-administration
[3] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/06/16/doj-intervenes-in-pollution-case-against-elon-musks-xai-data-center/
Re:Loyalty (Score:5, Informative)
The reason may be [1] even more stupid [techdirt.com]
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/16/apparently-the-real-reason-anthropics-models-are-offline-a-six-year-old-trump-grudge/
Re: (Score:2)
> Loyalty is currently more precious than ethics. So I would not be surprised if the [1]DoD spat [wikipedia.org] over war purposes and surveillance is what has put them on the wrong side of the administration. As compared to xAI that's getting [2]shielded [theguardian.com] by [3]the administration [breitbart.com] for it's submissive participation in the Iran war.
No mod points today, so quoting against the "troll" mod bombs.
Parent is "insightful" not "troll".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic%E2%80%93United_States_Department_of_Defense_dispute
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/16/elon-musk-xai-datacenters-trump-administration
[3] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/06/16/doj-intervenes-in-pollution-case-against-elon-musks-xai-data-center/
Dual use software (Score:2)
Military software development comes with lots of restrictions and the security guys never explain anything, they just tell you what to do or not to do and that is it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re-reading what I just wrote, it sure feels weird to be defending a big tech company. Strange days indeed.
Re: (Score:2)
It shouldn't matter if it's a big tech company or some poor schmuck running a small company out of their garage, an injustice is still an injustice and if we aren't willing to speak up about it we will sooner or later ourselves be subjected to one.
Free speech? (Score:2)
In what way is i/o with an AI not free speech? Because, technology? Can they shut down a newspaper because it's typeset on a computer?
I don't care whose product it is (Score:4, Insightful)
...if you can't disable your AI in 90 min that would seem like a problem.
Already said this (Score:2)
Part of a previous comment about Anthropic:
My point being that the Trumpets are playing a dirge for Anthropic and all of its top employees. They need to go elsewhere for their own good. The only way the company will survive is if they sell it to Musk, Bezos, or another billionaire kiss-ass, and even that is a crap shoot given how fickle this administration is.
Liars (Score:2)
"Wah wah wah, we're the victims!" - people who want to give the most powerful hacking tool ever made to China, Russia, and India.
Meanwhile China's Deepseak gets a free pass (Score:2)
because someone admires other dictatorships.
ask Jared (Score:2)
Anthropic must be experiencing similar confusion as every other entity in the world who gets pulled into talks with the Trump party. Anthropic should have lawyers (really really good lawyers) dealing with this entire thing. Talking to Trump or his cronies is like making a deal with an apprentice of Satan. Not as clever as Satan, but you're not going to get what you want. That's the art of the deal. Never let the other side get what they want. Plus shit on your hands before you shake anyone else's.
They're being made an example for others (Score:2)
It's not about whether others have the same capability; it's because Anthropic refused to allow the US government to use their AIs to be involved in combat action. They're being turned into an example: "this is what happens to you when you refuse to do as we tell you to."
Trump really is a fascist and all tech companies should stand together against that clown. However, there's two things in the mix here which prevent them from standing together: 1) They're actually afraid, 2) They smell money. Anthropic wil
Easy solution, Anthropic. (Score:2)
Make a generous donation towards one of his damn vanity projects and this goes away.
Danger Was Indicated by Anthropic (Score:2)
It was Anthropic's CEO and executives themselves that were claiming how dangerous and powerful the model could be. Anthropic said it was so powerful they had to release a version with safety measures to prevent it from being used for evil prompts. The administration is simply responding to their own claims, and this is even a greater risk now that those safety measures are apparently able to be avoided using prompt engineering.
Of course not! (Score:1)
This is small government, they wouldn't meddle in the private sector! Could you imagine what would happen if they could abuse their position like that? That would be insane and completely against the American Dream and the foundation of our company!
No taxation without representation!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> This is small government, they wouldn't meddle in the private sector!
And if they did, the Party of Personal Responsibility would just blame it on Biden.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
> The vast majority of voters in any party want the opposite of that but are told to vote for "the lesser of two evils" which admits to an inherently evil system.
This is only possible because the US has first-past-the-post elections, a clunky and primitive voting method that can enable this situation. Moving to more advanced voting methods like ranked choice or STAR voting prevents a two-party stranglehold from forming.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Also I would point out that there's nothing socialist about modern American fascism, considering that there's very little flirtation with collective ownership of the means of production going on (other than Sam Altman getting Trump to consider having the US government buy the gigantic economic black-hole-bomb he's built), but they do enact deals that look a good bit like socialism for corporations the regime favors...
You missed the part where they socialized everythi (Score:1, Troll)
Socialized public schools, socialized medical insurance, socialized retirement, socialized tons of bureaucrat govt jobs, socialized stealing of income and property... What planet are you from that you missed Big Brother stealing money to fund this stuff? You think Trump dug this $40T hole by himself? He's trying very hard to make it bigger but you're crazy if you think the expansion of government's size is a partisan issue. They both want to expand government so bad it hurts and it's already super-ultra-me
Re: You missed the part where they socialized ever (Score:1)
Socialized only to make sure they fail, not to provide for the general welfare.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> But this is rationalizing, dude. This is you realizing that you've voted for blatant corruption and the destruction of democracy in the US, and then trying to pretend that the other side is just as bad.
> But the simple truth is the other side is not even close to being just as bad.
But, but, Fox News said they were, and that it was all down to:
- Crooked Hilary (is that what he called her?)
- Obama Hussein
- Sleepy Joe
- Hunter Biden, think of the laptop.
Re: (Score:1)
> so-called far-left Democrats idealize Bolshevism while the far-right Republicans idealize Fascism
What you leave out is percentages because this is a dishonest statement. Maybe like >10% of Democrat voters idealize "Bolshevism" (or whatever you think it is). This is the party that in fact did not elect Bernie Sanders, twice. However Republicans did in fact nominate Trump twice but even then I wouldn't even say a majority of Republican voters would actually be fascist (but they are pushing it).
> So if the Democrats are in power and they want to increase the size and scope of government the Republicans will go along with it 80% of the time.
Sometimes we would also call that "running the government".
> to get bribes from the MIC or poisons in the food supply to get bribes from Pharma or Big Chem it doesn't matter, that get passed.
The top 5 military contractors by market cap add
Re: (Score:2)
> Isn't it funny how the Republican Party always gets very concerned about spending and the reach of government when the Republican Party doesn't control government; but just as soon as they do have control they start spending like crypto bros and use government to interfere in literally everything that doesn't fit their questionable narratives?
I can think of a few recent Republican presidents where that did not apply, but The Donald is the ultimate RINO - he was affiliated with the Democrats a few years back
Re: (Score:2)
The "Chamber of Commerce" Republican Party of Mitt Romney is gone, and it's never coming back.
It's time to let go of the nostalgia of conservative-leaning politicians with consistent views and predictable results that also relied upon ethics and morals. None of that exists any more. All of those people either gave up on ethics and morals, retired, or were primaried out.
Anyone that used to believe in the supremacy of individual liberties have turned into "anti-woke" crusaders more interested in having gove
Re: Of course not! (Score:1)
The modern democratic party is quite right of center, and that's a problem. The Democratic party is an enormous fan of corporate welfare and subsidies for industries that are aligned with their talking points. There are still a few firebrands in the party, mostly centrists like AOC and Elizabeth Warren and possibly Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar, but they took suck at the teat of irresistible corruption.
And this is not a both sides argument. For there to be a both sides argument, there have to be two sides i