Most film buffs know the trivia: the word “Mafia”was never uttered in “The Godfather,” after real-life crime figures pressured filmmakers to avoid the term. Whatever their internal conflicts, mob leaders were united on one point: the Mafia didn’t exist.
That same instinct is now on display in Silicon Valley, as AI companies compete for government contracts while downplaying the ideological frameworks shaping their decisions.
In a recent Wired article, Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, sister of CEO Dario Amodei, sought to disclaim Anthropic’s association to Effective Altruism (EA), saying, “I’m not the expert on effective altruism… My impression is it’s a bit of an outdated term.” So, there we have it. Ms. Amodei is no expert, or, in the parlance of the mob itself, “she don’t know nothing.”
Curiously, Ms. Amodei’s self-exoneration fails to mention that she is married to Holden Karnofsky, one of the most publicly prolific apostles of EA and a top technical advisor for Anthropic. It doesn’t take a prompt to Grok to understand why super-woke Anthropic aims to downplay its fealty to EA as it pursues government contracts from the anti-woke Trump Administration.
So far this is proving difficult. While Dario managed to delete his social media posts calling Trump a “feudal warlord,” he soon returned to form by protesting the president’s chip deal with China by asserting it was “like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea and then bragging.” This is a fairly eye-opening broadside against a figure that Anthropic publicly claims to support.
Recommended
If the leaders of Anthropic are driven to cloak their connection to a fringe movement that owes its current status to billions of dollars in donations from Anthropic’s inner circle, how nervous should the rest of us be?
The answer to that depends on whether you believe, as EA does, that technology including AI should be controlled by a handful of elites for the “good of mankind” and to “protect global security, democratic institutions, and human welfare.” This “good” includes going all-in for climate change, open borders, and vastly more spending on government social programs, while opposing the use of AI for specific applications related to national defense, criminal surveillance, and border security.
Claude got its foot in the door by practically giving itself away to the federal government for a mere $1, quickly embedding in national security workflows. But that access is now colliding with reality. Anthropic is in a direct standoff with the Pentagon after refusing to support key military and surveillance uses, triggering a government-wide cutoff attempt that has since spilled into a high-profile court fight.
That standoff has now moved from the Pentagon to the courts, and, for the moment, the courts have sided with Anthropic. In late March, a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to label the company a national security risk and cut off its use across federal agencies.
The ruling fits a familiar pattern. A Biden-appointed judge blocks a core national security decision by a duly elected president, not on narrow grounds, but by substituting her own judgment for his. That’s not a procedural check. It’s judicial overreach into decisions voters already made.
Americans elected a president to run national defense and enforce the law, not to have those decisions second-guessed by judges and Silicon Valley ideologues. Yet that’s exactly where we are.
And it still dodges the real issue. Anthropic is trying to control how the government uses its own tools.
Given Anthropic’s core opposition to the very specific promises President Trump made to the American people to ensure the nation’s safety and prosperity, as well as combat woke attempts to limit free speech, perhaps the time has come for the administration to bid adieu to Anthropic in exchange for AI partners who support the mandate Trump received from voters.
Even if some users feel Claude is technologically superior to its competitors, whatever advantages it may offer are entirely worthless if they don’t advance the president’s policies. By withholding their product based upon the current whims of a far-left ideology, Anthropic is able to exercise a veritable veto over the executive branch, an absolutely outrageous and chilling proposition.
The White House isn’t oblivious to Anthropic’s attempt to obfuscate its woke lineage and EA pedigree, nor to the restrictions they are placing on contractors to comport with EA’s guiding principle of the purported “good” measured by progressive material standards. Former FCC policy advisor Nathan Leamer is correct in noting that EA is “a governing philosophy that is entirely built on godless progressive ideas.” These are not principles that will make America great again, no matter by which name they are called.
Gerard Scimeca is chairman and general counsel for CASE, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, a free-market consumer advocacy group he co-founded.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member