Politics The Big Problem with Anthropic’s ‘AI Safety’ Brand The company’s current battle with the Pentagon distracts from the military use of its flagship model. The San Francisco–based AI company Anthropic has garnered national attention after a high-profile public dispute with the Pentagon over AI safety standards and the potential use of its technology for mass domestic surveillance. Its defiance of demands from the Trump administration—which last month led to a ban on federal government contracting with the company that is now the basis of an Anthropic lawsuit against the administration—prompted Silicon Valley elites to rally behind Anthropic and its CEO, Dario Amodei. The episode has rallied Silicon Valley behind the company in ways reminiscent of the tech world’s pre-Trump liberal era. “Now what began as a whisper of support for Anthropic in the tech industry has crescendoed into a shout,” the New York Times reports.  The independent journalist Jack Poulson told The American Conservative he suspects that winning such support may be Anthropic’s goal—that the feud with the Trump administration may function less as a principled stand for civil liberties than as a calculated marketing strategy. That strategy would be designed to appeal to Silicon Valley liberals and progressives who dislike Trump, are skeptical of how the government uses their technology, yet are ultimately willing to provide the U.S. and other governments with the most powerful tools to censor, surveill, and even kill their enemies for the right price. Poulson, who left his role as a senior scientist at Google in 2017 in protest over the company’s work on a censored search engine project for China, pointed to the fact that Anthropic’s entire brand distinction from OpenAI rests on its supposed ethical standards. That Anthropic is now engaged in a highly public dispute—one that has reportedly helped propel its Claude chatbot past ChatGPT in March app downloads—is “on brand,” Poulson said. It may simply be a way “for Anthropic to establish itself as #resistance,” he argued, so that “its employees can still feel welcome in liberal circles.” Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, for his part, has experience with such calculated marketing strategies from his time as OpenAI’s policy director, helping that company exploit the false pretense of being a nonprofit for financial benefits. Poulson pointed to a series of under-discussed disclosures that call into question Anthropic’s image as a company uniquely guided by ethical concerns about surveillance and the misuse of artificial intelligence. A leaked meeting booklet uncovered by Poulson in 2023 reveals Anthropic representatives participating in a closed-door intelligence collaboration involving senior CIA officials—including the agency’s chief technology officer and director of artificial intelligence—alongside Australian government officials.  The workshop, organized through forums run by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Special Competitive Studies Project and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, was part of a broader effort to explore how large language models could be integrated with Western security states. At the same time, Anthropic has expanded its government business, hiring longtime Palantir employee Steve Sloss to lead U.S. government sales and pitching its technology to various intelligence agencies, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Those disclosures raise broader questions about Anthropic’s ties to the deep state. Poulson noted that the company has partnered with Palantir, whose platforms are built around large-scale commercial and government data fusion, despite Anthropic’s public warnings about the risks of such systems. He also pointed to the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise, which has long discussed using large language models to process vast troves of publicly available data. The 2023 meeting between Anthropic and CIA officials raises questions about Anthropic’s awareness of, or cooperation with, those efforts. Even as the firm now publicly resists certain Pentagon demands, its flagship AI model, Claude, has already been integrated into the U.S. military’s targeting infrastructure where it operates under the hood of Palantir’s Maven system. The model is now used by military planners to analyze intelligence feeds and generate prioritized target lists for U.S. strikes in Iran, and was likely involved in the American bombing of an elementary school which killed more than 160 people, mostly young girls. Previously, Anthropic’s AI was reported to have played a role in the operation to kidnap Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro in which more than 80 people were killed.  Though it may advertise itself as opposed to fully autonomous weapons, Anthropic seems to have few red lines about how its products are used to kill non-Americans. While Anthropic is now widely celebrated as a champion of civil liberties and AI ethics, its cozy relationship with the U.S. national security state—and the growing use of its technology in military operations—should invite far more skepticism about the company’s branding than it has so far received. The post The Big Problem with Anthropic’s ‘AI Safety’ Brand appeared first on The American Conservative.

Not using the same set of tools. The post “I’m not a poet”: Billy Joel could never write like Bob Dylan first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

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The media is the enemy. The post ‘Sneaker Salesman’, ‘Quiet Restaurant Worker’: Media Works to Humanize Islamic Terrorists appeared first on Frontpage Mag.

Do you say yes when your heart knows the answer should be no?

When you feel like you can’t get anything right and everyone else is winning, this prayer is for you. If the words “I’m not good enough” won’t stop echoing, here’s the truth that can finally break that lie.

A recent study by Columbia Theological Seminary showed that stress and anxiety levels have never been higher—in our country, in our families, and in our churches.The fact that those who believe in God tend to be just as stressed and anxious as those who don’t, indicates there’s a disconnect between professing a belief in God and truly knowing Him and what He’s capable of.Scripture instructs us how we can live without worry and it straight out tells us not to be anxious about anything, because we have a God who cares for us. The phrase “Do not fear” is found more than 80 times in the Bible. Yet clearly, as believers, we find it easier to trust God with our eternal life than with our everyday life and all that causes us anxiety.  There are times when we can get caught up in our circumstances and forget Who God is, what He’s capable of, and how much He has us on His mind. I believe that might be the reason so many of us experience an anxious mindset—we have yet to apply what we know about God to our real-life situations and remember that He is absolutely capable of getting us through whatever we face minute by minute, day by day.Here are seven ways knowing God—truly knowing Him—can lessen your anxiety.Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/pixdeluxe

When we were single in our late 20s, a former roommate and I noticed that spending time with certain couples felt easier and more life-giving than it did with others. But why? Though I recently got married, during many years of singleness I observed behaviors of people I considered good married friends. This list isn’t exhaustive or representative of all circumstances, but embracing these principles can help married Christians cultivate more caring and vibrant relationships with their single friends. 1. Don’t assume your single friends are unhappy. I could always sense when someone’s somber demeanor suggested she thought I cried myself to sleep every night, despite the fact that I enjoyed my life. Not only are such assumptions often inaccurate, but they also contradict Scripture’s teaching that singleness is a good gift from God. While it’s true some singles struggle with contentment, plenty find joy and fulfillment while appreciating the benefits of life without a spouse (1 Cor. 7:7, 32–35). 2. Watch what you say to your single friends. “He’s out there somewhere!” and similar well-meaning sentiments imply all single people will eventually marry. But Scripture suggests there are many reasons a person might remain single (Matt. 19:12), so it’s not helpful to presume that God’s will for a single person’s life will include marriage. Additionally, referring to marriage as the ultimate means of sanctification implies singles are somehow missing out on this process. Scripture encourages us that “he who began a good work . . . will bring it to completion” by whatever means necessary (Phil. 1:6). A good married friend reminds a single person that singleness—just as much as marriage—reflects God’s goodness to her. 3. Include single friends in your family. By being regularly invited into married friends’ homes, I developed meaningful friendships with their husbands and endearing, auntlike relationships with their kids. These were some of the greatest blessings of my life, gifts only married friends could give. Believers are called to use their gifts to serve one another as “stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10). Perhaps one of the most precious ways to use the gifts of marriage and family is to counteract the loneliness of singleness by adopting singles into a family where they’re cherished and invited to spend birthdays, holidays, Sunday lunches, and random Thursday nights. 4. Talk to your single friends about marriage. Meaningful Christian friendships naturally involve sharing how God is working in one another’s lives. For those who are married, this rightly includes aspects of the marriage relationship. While it’s true some singles struggle with contentment, plenty find joy and fulfillment. Yet many people reserve marriage talk for fellow married people, assuming their single friends can’t relate or would rather not discuss it. All this does, however, is withhold a large part of your life from someone who cares about you and has valuable insight to offer. It might also deprive a single friend of wisdom that could strengthen her own marriage one day (Prov. 27:17). 5. Notice your single friends’ practical needs. For me, the scariest part about contracting COVID-19 in 2020 wasn’t being sick. It was the thought of spending two weeks home alone, unable to go to the grocery store. As the author of Ecclesiastes explains, Two are better than one. . . . For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (4:9–10) A good married friend remembers that her single friend doesn’t have a built-in life partner. And unless they have family nearby, many singles must rely on friends to care for their physical and tangible needs. 6. Offer to set up your single friends. Opportunities to meet fellow Christian singles naturally decrease as people age and transition from settings like college, graduate school, and young-adult ministries. While online dating has become popular, connections made by friends can still be incredibly helpful. In particular, a married friend’s spouse can play a vital role in the dating life of a single person because the spouse often interacts with entirely different pools of people. If a single friend desires a relationship, keeping an eye out for suitable matches is a great way to care for her (Prov. 3:27). 7. Share your single friends’ joys and sorrows. Scripture calls believers to lovingly enter into one another’s lives, most notably in Romans 12:15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” A good married friend acknowledges and celebrates her single friend’s joy and success. Singles’ accomplishments can easily go unnoticed without a spouse to share them with, and self-promotion may feel awkward or prideful. Singles’ accomplishments can easily go unnoticed without a spouse to share them with. The same can be true of grief. We also need companionship in grief. After I lost a beloved friend to cancer, my husband offered comfort I hadn’t previously experienced in grieving as a single. Having someone to witness our pain is significant. A good married friend realizes she may be the only person to grieve alongside her single friend. As many of these actions suggest, a good married friend is really just a good friend. As you seek to build strong relationships with single people, keep in mind that you have far more in common with them than not—including the need to be understood, valued, cared for, and loved.

A twisted pair of photonic crystals integrated with MEMS can dynamically control the handedness of light on a chip. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a chip scale device that can actively control the “handedness” of light as it moves through it, a property known [...]