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That means that the software was not tested for every scenario. Not that the user cannot try to use it in a way it was never intended to.

If, on the other hand, Anthropic deliberately blocks the user from doing something, then it is sabotage.


> That means that the software was not tested for every scenario.

Actually I think it means what it says.

> Not that the user cannot try to use it in a way it was never intended to

No-one said it did. User can try anything he likes. That's beside the point.

> If, on the other hand, Anthropic deliberately blocks the user from doing something, then it is sabotage.

Well, consider CSAM generation. Anthropic is free to block whatever it likes.


Again: if Anthropic deliberately blocks a user from ordering it to prosecute a target, then it is degrading the software capability on purpose.

Yes, but degrading capability on purpose is entirely permitted by a No Warrantee contract, and hence not at all the sabotage their own product to not function as contracted as feared by to DoD. Unless there's a very different and unusual contract in this case.

I don't think you understand what "No warranty" means in a software license. It means Anthropic cannot be held liable for results if the software misbehaves and instead of bombing a terrorist compound it bombs a wedding (I chose this example because the US has a tradition to bomb weddings in Iraq and Afghanistan). But in no form does it mean "yeah, I don't feel like doing what you prompted me".

Hence, Anthropic sabotaged the models on purpose to not respond properly to all prompts.


> It means Anthropic cannot be held liable for results if the software misbehaves

Actually I think it means what is says - which does include no warrantee of FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. This lets Anthropic block any purpose it likes.


There is a dfference between “our product can’t do X” and “our product can do X, but we don’t want you to use it to do X”.

Yes certainly, I can sell highly corrosive concentrated hydrochloric acid to the government as part of some contract for the synthesis of certain chemicals but I am fully within my rights to write that the acid should not be sprayed on people from a pump.

Say we have this prompt for Claude at the Pentagon: “You have control over these 50 drones, fly them to Ethiopia and eliminate all possible terrorists you can using the maximum endurance of the drons. In this folder you have all the necessary intel. Confidence rate needs to be at least 70%. Report back when all drones have landed back at the base”

Why is this not considered human in the loop? And let’s say human in the loop will just press Y; what is the difference?


> They're clearly fine with it, but they wanted human-in-the-loop on decision making.

And the Pentagon does not want that. Plain and simple.

And now Anthropic is learning the hard way what happens when you say no to the Pentagon.

It is truly mind boggling that anyone thinks Anthropic can dictate terms to the military.


Yes I really don't understand these sorts of replies people are making, it's like a missile manufacturer determining where and how their missiles can be used and bricking them mid flight if they detect they're going to a forbidden destination.

The passed a law directing the military to round-up and arrest every japanese in the US and hold them indefinetely, and the military did so.

The military will kill anyone instructed to kill. Especially if it is in the body of a law passed by Congress.

Do you think in the military you can just be like “Yeah, I don’t feel it today, I’m going to take s sick day”?


> Do you think in the military you can just be like “Yeah, I don’t feel it today, I’m going to take s sick day”?

What do you think happens if they refuse to do it?

Either nothing, or if they get sued or prosecuted for not doing it then they get brought in front of a court, and a judge who is doing their job would say that they were right not to do it.


> What do you think happens if they refuse to do it?

In war time they can be shot on the spot for disobeying orders.

> Either nothing, or if they get sued or prosecuted for not doing it then they get brought in front of a court, and a judge who is doing their job would say that they were right not to do it.

I think you confuse the military with corporate environments. Worst thing that can happen in the private sector is that you get fired.

In the military you can spend the rest of your life in prison if “you did not feel like obeying orders”. The military is built ob discipline and followimg orders, not Gen Z mood swings.


> The US is a constitutional republic, it does not have a system where anything Congress decides is law.

Really now? Then why does it say in the Constitution that it was created to pass laws?


Your constitution literally has limits on what sort of laws congress can pass, i.e. "congress shall make now law..."

Yes, a very small list of NOs. Everything else goes.

Huge list of "No"'s. The "No"'s are a core part of the American system, whereas the absence of "No"'s is a core part of the British system.

I thought after 60,000 feet MSL a country's airspace ends.

So, who's the UK actually attacking?


This is not an attack. The satellites aren't being damaged.

Someone tell that to DDOS

nothing to see here; orbit on

UK is under russian attack. same with canada, germany, sweden, etc.

The probability of generating a zero is incredibly low if you use the normal distribution curve.

So it is not necessarily that it doesn't generate zero, they did not run enough times to increase the probability of actually generating a zero.


From what I can see they were trying to generate 16bit integers, so the probability is 1 in 65536 and they were running the test for 11 hours.

You definitely would expect a roughly equal number of 0s as any other of those numbers since it's uniformly distributed. And definitely not 0


> You definitely would expect a roughly equal number of 0s as any other of those numbers since it's uniformly distributed.

How would random numbers be uniformly distributed?


Because each number is equally as likely as every other number. If you know you're more likely to get certain numbers, or in this case have no chance of getting certain other numbers, it is by definition _less random_.

No, that has nothing to do with randomness. It is however a different distribution than expected.

Think about the odds of a uranium atom decaying in a given second. Certainly a random event, yet for most seconds, the value is False, not True.


You are both right, the atom decaying is completely random but the distribution of the decays is still predictable.

If you have a random number generator your are relying on the fact that it is uniformly distributed and thus has no bias towards certain numbers. Or if it is not uniformly distributed you would want to know the exact distribution so you can correct for it.

If you have an RNG that is treated as putting out uniformly distributed numbers but it is does in fact favor some numbers over others, that would be a defect that can cause problems/be exploited.


Ah. My reasoning, with the normal distribution, was that zero was at the left most end of the curve and with a pretty much non-existent chance of appearing.

As the number of samples approaches infinity, the percentage share of all possible results approaches equality. A uniform random distribution is like the mathematical identity of statistics.

So you think a weighted die is more random than a fair die? A uniform distribution means each outcome has equal probability; it doesn’t mean the outcome is predictable.


With enough repetitions.

With a few (say 10, so 655360 runs), you will not get a uniform distribution, and some numbers (like 0) might not appear.


This also seems to happen for 16 and 32 bit numbers, so you should be able to see zeros easily.

They also write:

> Running the same programs on an Intel processor, and the 0's are there with no problem.


Why would it be a normal distribution?

should be a discrete uniform distribution right?

To keep it simple, you use an when the first letter of the next word sounds like a vowel when pronounced (vowel sound) and appplies to ancronyms too. Otherwise you use a.

That is probably on of the most confusing things about English. What do you mean "sounds like a vowel"? All vowels sound like vowels, what else would they sound like? While we're at the subject, why is Y not a vowel (except when it is) and why can you have more than one vowel in a syllable. In the example in the article they have unicorn, which is clearly spelled wrong if English were to make sense. The correct spelling should be "junicorn". Fixed.

Counting the number of syllables in a language like Danish means you just count the number of vowels. A syllable must have one, and only one, vowel. A word like "you", if it existed in Danish, would have three syllables, because all those letters are vowels, at any point in time.


For example “I have an MBA” and “I know a mechanic”.

When you pronounce the M from MBA, you hear the e in front, you’re saying em-bi-a. But for mechanic, you just have a stromg m.

This is what I mean by “if it sounds like a vowel”. And hence an and a.


Yes, I'm well aware. I'm responding to the code in the OP's article (you need to click through the link at the bottom of the HN submission--I have no idea why the OP blog has two separate pages for this).

The one that I often find irritating is SQL...

An "ess queue ell", but a "sequel".

:(


How is that irritating? I find it funny that the article gives you a way to distinguish the way the author pronounces it just from their writing.

It always feels a bit like hitting a speedbump mid-flow!

Mostly breaks concentration/focus etc.


“An MRI report“ vs “a yogurt container”.

The MRI example is perfect, but I feel like the yogurt one is a bad example given the "and sometimes Y" (is a vowel) thing, or do we just ignore that for a vs an?

Like in this context, do we always treat Y when pronounced like "Yes" or "Yogurt" as a consonant?


Because “an youghurt container” sounds wrong.

English has this thing where you know you wrote or pronounced something correct if it sounds right.


Because vowels are sounds, not letters

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