Judge Rules Trump Administration’s Blacklisting of Anthropic Was Illegal (nytimes.com)
145 points by jbegley 3 hours ago
firefoxd 2 hours ago
The law is too slow. It's like a horse carriage in the age of twitter. Why can't they expedite for special cases? Not even defending Antropic or any company. Just that if a tweet can cause damage in seconds, the law shouldn't be too far behind.
jstummbillig 4 minutes ago
Mostly, the law is not creating the right incentives. In this case in particular, I don't think it's so much a matter of speed: I suspect the current US admin would still sow the chaos they do to the same degree if it was deemed illegal within a week instead of within months.
throw0101a 2 hours ago
> Why can't they expedite for special cases?
To a certain extent this exists, but given that SCOTUS has been stacked with GOPers…
> The shadow docket is a break from ordinary procedure. Such cases receive very limited briefings and are typically decided a week or less after an application is filed. The process generally results in short, unsigned rulings. In contrast, merits cases take months, include extensive briefing and public oral argument, and result in lengthy written opinions detailing the reasoning of the majority and of any concurring and dissenting justices.
oatmeal1 22 minutes ago
It's not unusual that the "shadow docket" orders have limited briefings when the extent of the ruling/order is usually procedural, as opposed to ruling on the merits of the case.
It should be noted any justice can write a dissent in a "shadow docket" ruling. If a justice finds a ruling incorrect, nothing hides their criticism of it from the light.
bpodgursky an hour ago
This is not really due to political balance as much as wanting to respect the standard escalation process and maintain decorum. They would rather that lower judges give proper justified rulings rather than spit out binding decisions on a whim without oral arguments, unless there's really an emergency.
Refreeze5224 30 minutes ago
fny an hour ago
ImJamal 2 minutes ago
Doesn't every company and person consider their case special?
inigyou 2 hours ago
The law is normally supposed to repay whatever damage you suffered while the law was running.
MBCook 21 minutes ago
What would that even be in a case like this?
frog42 an hour ago
I thought I hated Web 2.0/3.0, but "age of twitter" made me actually feel ill.
mceachen an hour ago
age of xitter won't make you feel better.
physicalecon 2 hours ago
Law was not in effect yet, and now it’s repealed. Cest la vie.
avaer 38 minutes ago
That's why the exploit of a social media savvy government is to overflow the system with so much slop (literally and figuratively) the law can never catch up. Your bug is their feature.
inigyou 35 minutes ago
They call it "flooding the zone", it's an explicit strategy
colechristensen 2 hours ago
>Why can't they expedite for special cases?
They can, the preliminary injunction is a thing that can be invoked very quickly to stop actions before the law decides.
Anthropic didn't suffer any irreparable harm and they're free to seek damages if they wish, but they won't because it doesn't really matter to them. This whole mess has just been advertising that has kept them in the headlines and very likely has been more beneficial than harmful.
3eb7988a1663 an hour ago
Anthropic didn't suffer any irreparable harm
adastra22 42 minutes ago
I don’t know how you can say that. Anthropic’s reputation was destroyed by this, and A LOT of business deals happened before this injustice was corrected.
bulbar an hour ago
You sure they didn't lose governmental contracts because of it?
Also, the current administration doesn't care much about the law but what Trump and his people like and dislike. They made it very clear that they don't like Anthropic, so they won't get any contracts now, this ruling doesn't really matter until Trump is out of office.
None of this provable, of course.
They even fired people for investigating the storm on the Capitol. The message was pretty clear: we don't care about the law or what your job is, if you do something we dislike we retaliate, so you better become corrupt and stop caring as well or quit now on your own terms.
bushido 2 hours ago
It was a master stroke in international politics though, the US created an arms race towards sovereign ai, small models, and self-hosting - exactly like they wanted to.
(sarcasm intended)
angry_octet an hour ago
The Iran war and SoH crisis has been great for EV uptake outside of the US. In combination with the US AI apartheid, it has been a huge boost for Chinese EVs and Chinese AI adoption.
bruce511 an hour ago
And trade. The last 18 months the US has shown itself to be a unreliable trade partner. Lots of companies are looking at diversifying both markets and supply chains.
The recent trip of the Canadian PM to China is but the most visible part of this shift. That's at govt level, but I've seen it happen all the way down to individual level.
US products are typically more expensive here than Chinese. But at least you were buying from a friendly supplier. That distinction is eroding quickly. In my experience it's forced people to try Chinese, and generally been surprised (in a good way) over quality and features.
And yes, the price of oil has focused people much more at the EV market. (Not least because people with an EV already aren't shy about gloating). Pretty much everyone I talk to, who would buy a car "new" tells me their next one will be electric. The tipping point is coming much faster than most people think.
newsomix9xl an hour ago
ihaveajob 30 minutes ago
No wonder in China they call Trump "the nation builder".
dboreham 2 hours ago
Similarly the war created unstoppable momentum towards decarbonization.
newsomix9xl an hour ago
Will Trump go down as one of the greatest environmentalists... ever?
frog42 an hour ago
So can they now sue the government and recoup their inflated theoretical losses to be paid out of tax revenue? It feels like any outcome here will have no negative effect on the major players actually involved.
dools an hour ago
s/out of tax revenue/with public money/
This is the federal government. When they collect taxes it is the minus operation that corresponds to the plus operation when they spent it initially.
Arubis 2 hours ago
Judge rules horse must return to barn.
hingler36 an hour ago
At this point, does precedent even matter? Based on recent rulings, I feel like this exact scenario could play out again and the result would be the exact same.
cubefox 9 minutes ago
Note that this is a ruling on (just) one of two independent lawsuits, as stated in the article.
skeledrew 2 hours ago
> unlawfully retaliated
Can it be at all lawful to retaliate though?
thinkcontext 2 hours ago
Good for Anthropic for standing up for themselves but think of the masses of companies that decided not to take the risk. The tone was definitely set at Trump's inauguration with all the tech execs front and center on display. They knew that if they didn't play ball Trump would use government power against them.
Law firms blackmailed into doing pro bono work for Trump's pet causes, intelligence analysts not able to tell the truth, energy companies giving up wind leases and switching to fossil fuels. And of course the constant shakedowns for cash.
solenoid0937 an hour ago
It's a shame companies like Google immediately folded instead of standing with them. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iKm2FhpWkuuBojm82/why-i-left...
In his recent interview Emil Michael (DoW undersecretary, "AI czar") even mentions that the Anthropic case served as motivation for Google folding.
It is a shame that Google's leadership is so spineless. On the minuscule off-chance any of those VPs are reading HN - you are bad and you should feel shame for increasing x-risk for a percentage point of profit.
newsomix9xl 43 minutes ago
Didn't google give up "not being evil" a long long time ago? Are you really surprised?
solenoid0937 23 minutes ago
jghn an hour ago
Since SCOTUS is stacked, it really doesn't matter.
bamboozled an hour ago
So what if it’s illegal, what can be done about it, the corruption is so extreme there will be no recourse.
I hope I’m wrong…
hirvi74 44 minutes ago
You're not wrong. The United States has a legal system and not a justice system. Having spent many years of my life involved 'adjacently' with the system, I'd say it's actually a rigged, sadistic system.
glerk an hour ago
No fine imposed on the Trump Administration corporation (doing business as the federal government of the US of A)? Does the current legal system allow Anthropic to sue for loss of revenue, reputational damage, etc.?
hingler36 an hour ago
Even if they are stuck with a fine, who enforces the fine? What's stopping them from just... Not paying it?
protocolture 2 hours ago
There was a guy in the comments of the first article on this topic, who claimed to be an expert on this law and was adamant that the decision by the Trump admin was perfectly legal.
Not just for accountability sake, but if that gentleman could come back in here and outline what he thinks is going on that would be quite interesting.
swingboy 2 hours ago
It’s possible this could go before multiple judges who won’t all agree with this particular one.
protocolture 28 minutes ago
Yeah but this was supposedly "Cut and dry" and no one familiar with the law could possibly mistake it, and it was all media manipulation that made it seem like there was a case where there wasnt one.
goatlover an hour ago
It's also possible the Trump admin has people commenting online.
bruce511 an hour ago
RoloBaron an hour ago
You can hear the Department of War's pov on this controversy from the All-In Podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwRflcLPAA&t=2479s
Super interesting pov from the person who recommended the supply risk designation.
replwoacause 2 hours ago
Most of what Trump does is illegal.
inigyou 31 minutes ago
Actually they made a law saying the president can do whatever he wants.
ButlerianJihad an hour ago
A lot of what the President does is ineffectual. And this is speaking with generality, including Presidents Obama, Biden, Clinton, et. al.
The modern method of "ruling by Executive Order/Action" is a clever political ruse. It garners a lot of attention to decree an EO on some wedge issue, doesn't it? It stirs the pot quite effectively, even if the EO isn't, in fact, effective to do anything at all.
Ruling by EO is a way to keep campaign promises. It's a way to assuage constituents and donors and benefactors, "hey, I'm doing what you wanted from me!" and it's a way to keep ahold of the narrative. What it isn't, is effective governance. The USA is not ruled by decree. The EOs, if they are on subjects that are normally the remit of the judicial or legislative branch, may not do much, if anything at all. The President can say he's meddling with the national budget; the media can say he's meddling; the citizens can all complain that he's meddling, but only Congress can actually do budgetary things. The "#nokings" protests are attacking a straw man, because the USA has no king indeed. We uphold the Constitution in this house.
A lot of EOs simply get blocked or countermanded or never take effect, and remain as Presidential Suggestions or Presidential Wishful Thinking entirely. And nobody notices when they fizzle: they only notice when the pen hits paper and they supposedly take effect. They fulfill his promises. They galvanize the base. They assuage benefactors.
Don't be fooled, though. Ruling by EO is simply another layer of lawfare. It's not effective governance and it's not intended to be. It's intended to confuse and beguile you. What is it that Sun Tzu and Saul Alinsky said about having power? Check on that first.
inigyou 30 minutes ago
What happens if the president ignores the budget and spends money how he wants?
digi59404 an hour ago
Interesting. I wonder how those who were laid off by the Government feel about this. Or those who are harmed by ICE Agents. Maybe those who are stuck in limbo because their visas aren’t going to be renewed.
You’re point about /effective/ governance makes sense. To that I agree, often the EOs are overturned or have little affect.
However, the damage EOs cause is very real, lasting, and can be disastrous. For example Trumps tariffs, while ineffective at their (stated) goal, were eventually overturned. But the damage they caused will be very long lasting. Supply chains are organic, they respond to outside forces, when those forces cause them to shift and change. Rarely do they on their own shift back.
trimethylpurine 2 hours ago
I don't agree. When anthropic contractually stopped the US government from using the platform for certain purposes that they could not prevent the average user from pursuing they created a de facto national security risk.
Prevent everyone from doing it or don't prevent anyone. You can't single out and cripple only one country.
I don't imagine that this was Anthropic's intent anyway. They were just trying to say that it shouldn't be used for warfare. Respectable, but short sighted considering that they couldn't stop other people from using it for that same purpose.
techblueberry an hour ago
You’re free to not agree with the law but you should know sometimes there are consequences for acting on that belief.
dosisking an hour ago
> When anthropic contractually stopped the US government from using the platform for certain purposes that they could not prevent the average user from pursuing they created a de facto national security risk.
The 'national security risk' is imaginary and exists solely in the minds of the government morons in charge of AI policy
doginasuit an hour ago
> When anthropic contractually stopped the US government from using the platform for certain purposes that they could not prevent the average user from pursuing they created a de facto national security risk.
That's some garbage. Anthropic had two red lines: 1) no lethal autonomous warfare without a human in the loop, and 2) no mass surveillance of Americans. How is that something the average user is capable of? How are those red lines creating a national security risk?
These were not special terms for the U.S. government, they were a part of the usage policy since 2024. Governments are not in the same class as the average user, their capability and potential for misuse of the service is not comparable. There is no reason why the U.S. government should dispute those terms, and their reaction was dystopian.
sb057 an hour ago
There are several hundred federal judges, and cases like this can be brought before virtually any of them. As a consequence at least one judge has ruled practically every single action by the Trump administration is illegal. These rulings are typically overturn at some point in the appeals process up to the Supreme Court, which has mostly upheld them as legal.
dools an hour ago
> As a consequence at least one judge has ruled practically every single action by the Trump administration is illegal.
Because he is a shameless crook who heads up a corrupt administration
> These rulings are typically overturn at some point in the appeals process up to the Supreme Court, which has mostly upheld them as legal.
Gee I wonder why that is!!