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solenoid0937HNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

> whether the company that branded itself as the ethical AI lab actually is one FWIW I have two(!!) …

> whether the company that branded itself as the ethical AI lab actually is one FWIW I have two(!!) close friends working for Anthropic, one for nearly two years and one for about 4 months. Both of them tell me that this is not just marketing, that the company actually is ethical and safety conscious everywhere, and that this was the most surprising part about joining Anthropic for them. They insist the culture is actually genuine which is practically unicorn rarity in corporate America. We have worked for FAANG so I know where they're coming from; this got me to drop my cynicism for once and I plan on interviewing with them soon. Hopefully I can answer this question for myself.

Original discussionSam Altman May Control Our Future – Can He Be Trusted?916 source comments · at import
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philip1209HN

We talk about Sam Altman a lot. At this point he has a Hollywood movie in post-production, a book ("The Optimist"), and a seemingly endless stream of profiles. It feels intellectually lazy to keep researching the same guy when the industry is moving beyond him. All evidence today suggests Anthropic is passing OpenAI in relative and absolute growth. So where's the critical reporting? The DOD coverage was framed around the Pentagon's decisions, not Anthropic's. And nobody seems interested in examining whether the company that branded itself as the ethical AI lab actually is one. That seems like a story worth writing.

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root_axisHN

Yeah, every engineer in the bay area has a way of framing the business they work for as a benign force for good... Until they find themselves working somewhere else, then suddenly they have a lot to say about the unacceptable things going on there. From the outside, I find Anthropic's hyperbolic marketing to be an indication that they are basically the same as every other bay area tech startup - more or less nice folks who are primarily concerned with money and status. That's not a condemnation, but I reject all the "do no evil" fanfare as conveniently self serving.

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hypersoarHN

I can believe that such an atmosphere exists there. I can't believe that it will stay. It will be squeezed out by the drive for profit in time.

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BolwinHN

I find it bizarre even the public image of Anthropic is seen as ethical after the Department of War debacle, in which they themselves admitted they had basically no qualms with their tech being used for war and slaughter at all except two very very thin lines, namely mass surveillance of American citizens and fully automated weaponry with their current models. It only showed they were marginally more ethical than OpenAI and XAI which isn't saying much.

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DirkHHN

I have multiple friends at Anthropic. I can second this. One thing I notice about Anthropic culture is that it is unusually kind. So much so that I worry they won't be Machiavellian enough to survive. Hope I am wrong.

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__alexsHN

If you know even the basics of ethics then such claims are clearly nonsense. There is no stable context independent ethical behaviour. This is a great example of the dangers of motivated reasoning.

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jarek-foksaHN

I wonder what Anthropic tries to achieve by spreading such blatant lies with their bot accounts. I'm definitely not buying anything from a company so morally corrupt to smear the competition while claiming to be somehow "ethical". And I'm not talking just about this thread, it's a recurring pattern on Reddit.

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victorevectorHN

Im curious — how do ethical and safety conscious manifest themselves there? Is it more cultural or process driven? Do you have any examples?

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MichaelDickensHN

Maybe people inside the company think Anthropic behaves ethically, which says something scary about either their ethical standards or their general awareness, considering how much documented unethical behavior we've seen from Anthropic leadership.[1] [1] "Unless Its Governance Changes, Anthropic Is Untrustworthy" https://anthropic.ml/

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