It continuously astonishes me that people spent so much time looking at the "red lines" - pure spectacle - promised by OpenAI/Anthropic, and promoted by mass media that hailed one as a hero and the other as a villain - that they never bothered even a cursory glance at the things both companies accepted, which were basically the same.
How wrong I was. This wasn't a case of one company accepting 99% of Trump's surveillance demands and another accepting 100%. They were identical:
So OpenAI’s “red line” against “mass domestic surveillance” is defined by compliance with legal authorities that, in practice, permit the collection of enormous quantities of Americans’ communications data without warrants, without court approval, and without congressional oversight. That’s the “safeguard.”
For a little additional context, I found this helpful breakdown: OpenAI and Anthropic appear ethically identical, identically evil. The difference is cash money.
Altman had secretly been working on the [Department of "War"] deal since Wednesday.
- before he announced his support for Dario
- before Trump had denounced Anthropic
- but after [OpenAI's] Brockman had donated 25M to Trump’s PAC
It was all theatre. Dario never had a chance.