Show notes
This is the long version of what happened so far. I will strive for shorter ones later, when I have the time to write them.
Most of you should read the first two sections, then choose the remaining sections that are relevant to your interests.
But first, seriously, read Dean Ball's post Clawed. Do that first. I will not quote too extensively from it, because I am telling all of you to read it. Now. You’re not allowed to keep reading this or anything else until after you do. I’m not kidding.
That's out of the way? Good. Let's get started.
What Happened
President Trump enacted a perfectly reasonable solution to the situation with Anthropic and the Department of War. He cancelled the Anthropic contract with a six month wind down period, after which the Federal Government would be told not to use Anthropic software.
Everyone thought the worst was now over. The situation was unfortunate for Anthropic and also for national security, but this gave us six months to transition, it gave us six months to negotiate another solution, and it avoided any of the extreme highly damaging options that Secretary of [...]
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Outline:
(00:49) What Happened
(10:02) The Timeline Of Events
(21:39) I Did Not Have Time To Write You A Short One
(22:40) The Unhinged Declaration of the Secretary of War
(25:08) Altman Has Been Excellent On The Question of Supply Chain Risk, But May Need To Do More
(27:35) Arrogance Here Means Insisting On Meaningful Red Lines On Mass Domestic Surveillance and Lethal Autonomous Weapons
(29:35) Not Doing Business Is Totally Fine
(30:22) The Demand For Unrestricted Access Is New And Is Selective And Fake
(32:47) Claims Of Strongarming Are Ad Hominem Bad Faith Obvious Nonsense
(34:55) Hegseth Equates Not Being a Dictator With Companies Having Veto Power Over Operational Military Decisions
(40:54) The Part That If Enacted Would Be A Historically Epic Clusterfuck
(48:54) The Other Part Of The Clusterfuck
(52:49) The Department of War Had Many Excellent Options
(55:53) And Then Theres Emil Michael
(01:02:42) Anthropic Will Probably Survive
(01:05:14) The Goal of DoW Was Largely Mass Domestic Surveillance
(01:15:32) What Are The Key Differences Between The Two Contracts?
(01:22:54) OpenAIs Contract Terms
(01:27:04) What OpenAIs Contract Terms Actually Do
(01:29:16) OpenAI Is Trusting DoW And Sam Altman Misrepresented This
(01:33:13) OpenAI Accepted Terms Anthropic Explicitly Declined And That Would Not Have Protected Anthropics Red Lines
(01:35:26) How Altman Initially Described His Deal
(01:42:26) OpenAI Allowed All Lawful Use And Trusts DoW On This
(01:47:21) The DoW Could Alter This Deal
(01:49:29) Why OpenAIs Shared Legal Language Offers Almost No Protections
(01:59:11) So How Does OpenAI Hope For This To Work Out?
(02:01:56) This Was Never About Money
(02:05:03) OpenAI Tells Us How They Really Feel
(02:06:45) First The Good News
(02:11:40) The OpenAI Redlines Only Forbid Currently Illegal Activity
(02:16:28) Altman Does Not Present As Understanding The Difference In Redlines
(02:18:46) Meeting Of The Minds
(02:21:21) Anthropics Position Was The Opposite Of How This Is Portrayed
(02:21:56) The Room Where It Happened
(02:25:45) You Dont Have The Right
(02:32:25) I Ask Questions And Get Answers
(02:37:05) Does This Contract Apply To NSA?
(02:38:07) Can OpenAI Models Be Used To Analyze Commercially Available Data At Scale?
(02:48:21) Employee Activism
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First published:
March 2nd, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wpdivf3iNJDzBcbzJ/secretary-of-war-tweets-that-anthropic-is-now-a-supply-chain
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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