The whole thing was a scam – by Gary Marcus

Probably you already saw how it all turned out. On the very same day that Altman offered public support to Amodei, he signed a deal to take away Amodei’s business, with a deal that wasn’t all that different. You can’t get more Altman than that.

But here’s the kicker: Per The New York Times,

Let that sink in. Altman had secretly been working on the deal since Wednesday.

– before he announced his support for Dario

– before Trump had denounced Anthropic

– but after Brockman had donated 25M to Trump’s PAC

It was all theatre. Dario never had a chance.

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It’s one thing for the government to reject Anthropic’s terms—and entirely another to banish them permanently and, absurdly and punitively declare them a supply chain risk. Worse, they did it in favor of someone else who took pretty similar terms and happened to have given more campaign contributions.

Anthropic deserves a chance at EXACTLY the same terms; anything else reeks of corruption.

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I am no fan of Amodei. I think he often overhypes things, many of which I have publicly challenged. The company ripped off a lot of writer’s work (per the $1.5B settlement), and recently walked back its core safety pledge.

But I believe in fair play. This wasn’t that.

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In capitalism, the market decides.

In oligarchy, connections and donations decide.

It sure look like the US is transitioning from the former to the latter.