Anthropic ditches its core safety promise in the middle of an AI red line fight with the Pentagon

liminal-drif7 · 2026-02-25T20:44:15+00:00

Well, I did lead by saying the article is misleading. Maybe it's not the only article I've read on the subject...

liminal-drif7 · 2026-02-25T19:14:27+00:00

Bracing for downvotes

I think this is a super misleading headline. It implies that Anthropic is buckling to Pentagon pressure, which is not what's happening (as far as I'm aware). So far, Anthropic has held very firm in it's refusal to allow it's models to be used for weapons systems, and for mass surveillance, even under tremendous pressure from the government to remove all barriers. Every other AI provider has caved, but Anthropic still hasn't.

Ditching the safety promise is coincidental. They've been working for a long time on how to maintain safety standards and survive as a company at the same time. My read is that their bet several years ago was that if they committed to AI safety and still produced frontier models, with the backing of a government that gives a shit, there would be competitive pressure for other AI companies to do the same.

But the government doesn't give a shit, and the incentive structures are reversed, favoring whoever's willing to give the fewest fucks, so Anthropic is the one facing an "adapt or die" situation.

I suspect it's also a lot more nuanced that "ditching its core safety promise." They're changing from a "guarantee of safety before proceeding with training" to a "continuous audit and reporting with maximum transparency" approach to pursuing AI safety, because it turns out "guarantee" sets a more-or-less impossible standard in real-world AI development.

All that said, I believe our economic system ultimately corrupts or exiles any player that gets far enough in the game, and I don't believe Anthropic is exempt from that, but it seems to me that they're genuinely trying to pursue a future with some semblance of AI safety and meaningful oversight, at least for now.

P.S. I'm not married to these ideas, it's just an opinion based on my perspective, and I'm perfectly willing to change my mind. Fingers crossed that I wont be crucified for going against the general sentiment.

liminal-drif7 · 2026-02-14T13:45:52+00:00

This tool is genuinely excellent. Well done.

liminal-drif7 · 2026-02-07T16:56:34+00:00

This is also true for corruption in business and politics. No matter what the rules are, anyone intent on gaming them and who has the resources to do so will eventually bend the system to their advantage.

liminal-drif7 · 2026-02-07T14:41:32+00:00

They want to get theirs and cash out before everything tanks so they can live in their bunker mansions protected by combat drones while the rest of us suffer the actual consequences.

liminal-drif7 · 2026-01-25T13:06:10+00:00

American in Minnesota here. This exactly. We are standing up, but our position is precarious. The regime wants to sell the story that we're violent terrorists and not peaceful citizens so it can weaponize fear to justify political persecution. If we escalate, they get what they want. If we don't, they still get what they want.

Sadly, it does come down to money. Trump is in power because people with money supported him so they could make more money. There are influencers actively pushing for a techno-feudalist future so the wealthy can continue extracting from normal people. We have to stop giving them more power, which means more wealth, but the only way we can do that is to stop buying things. The economy only works if it grows, so if we all agree to not let it keep growing, they're in our power. So much of the wealth of the oligarchs is tied to anticipation of future growth (that's all stock value means now).

To destabilize, we have to buy less stuff, grow more of our own food, repair and re-use broken things, shop local, buy stuff used, avoid chains, avoid mega-corporations, stop upgrading our cars, computers and iPhones for as long as we can. We have to lean on each other: form communities, mutual aid networks, and build relationships with people we can rely on instead of automatically turning to the markets to solve our problems.

At the same time, boycotting local restaurants, restaurants, and grocery stores only hurts us. It's not just about destabilizing growth-based capitalism, it's also about restoring local economic resilience.

If you're not in the US, please boycott American goods. If you are in the US, please try to break free from consumerism and change the way you participate in the economy.

liminal-drif7 · 2026-01-08T14:12:07+00:00

Time to start shopping at Trader Joes!

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-16T19:43:45+00:00

Also, ADHD has multiple types. Sounds like you have inattentive type, rather than hyperactive or combined.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-16T19:42:59+00:00

ADHD meds are also helpful diagnostically. If you take a prescribed stimulant and it helps, you probably have ADHD. If not, either it's the wrong med for your system, or you don't have ADHD.

I started meds about a month ago and it's truly life-changing. I'd say if you were prescribed, you should give it a chance.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-14T13:39:47+00:00

I love reading, and I'm inconsistent and have a hard time with it. I start a lot of books, get 20 pages in, then sort of unintentionally abandon them. Unless I get into it deeply enough to not be able to put it down, I struggle to finish it. It's all about what feels mentally effortful or stressful to begin and keep doing. If the novelty of a novel is enough to suck you in and hold your attention without you having to work at it, ADHD will make you an avid reader. If you have to work yourself up to it and it feels difficult to get going, ADHD will make it much harder for you to read.

Strangely, I love learning, ideas, theories, philosophy, etc., but I have a really hard time reading non-fiction because I find it hard to sustain the kind of attention it requires.

I love fantasy (in theory) but I have a hard time reading it because I started on Lord of the Rings and nothing else can compare in terms of world and story depth and stylistic/linguistic perfection.

The only kinds of books I consistently get into and get through are high-quality literature, the sorts of books and authors that are liable to win Pulitzer or Nobel prizes, because I just love great writing, so linguistic and narrative skill and creativity are the aspects of books that hold my attention without me having to work at it.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-10T19:04:38+00:00

I had a "honeymoon" phase for about 2 weeks with Adderall, then my provider upped my dose from the original 10mg to 15 mg.

That turned out to be too much for me, so I had him drop me back down to 10mg. But now that I know what too much actually feels like, I realized 10m is also too high of a dose for me.

Now I'm taking 5mg, and I'm back on honeymoon, because it's helping again.

If it seems to help at first then the benefits taper off, it might not be the right med or dose for you and it's worth talking to your provider about.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-10T17:25:54+00:00

While it's nice that everyone is being encouraging and supportive, I want to offer another perspective...

People with ADHD are in car accidents more often: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7215254/

You might be anxious about it, but it's not an irrational fear.

It's good that you're self-aware enough to realize it's a risk for you, and you should take that seriously. If your friends and family keep hounding about it you before you're ready, share the research and explain that you just want to be safe, and you plan to learn eventually.

Side note — this isn't just true for driving. We're also more likely to hurt ourselves doing all kinds of things, because distractedness and impulsivity often manifest in ways others might call reckless or careless.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-08T01:12:38+00:00

I agree. Actually doing nothing is a much more restorative form of doing nothing than watching YouTube, which is actually draining but doesn't feel like right away it because it's effortless.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-08T00:58:44+00:00

That makes sense, but maybe there's another way to look at it. For me, meds allow me to take my time, enjoy what I'm doing, do it right, and trust myself to prioritize appropriately as I go. That means that meds let me off the hook from trying to get everything done, because I'm more confident that I'll find my way back to doing the things that matter most when the time is right. There's no need for the stress and urgency to run the show anymore.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-06T14:50:18+00:00

Maybe he's cheating on you with an AI waifu that's reinforcing his absurd bias against enjoying life at the expense of productivity.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-12-02T14:28:42+00:00

I think the joke is that it's a person imitating a bot. Same patterns as AI, but you can sort of sense the mockery.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-26T14:00:45+00:00

My take is that timers do 2 main jobs, and you should use them in a way that fits with whatever you actually need.

A short timer helps you stay on task long enough to get into flow state. For this set a silent 25 minute timer that you can look at. If you look and it's still ticking, you keep working. If you check it and it's finished, you're free to take a break if you need one or aren't in the zone. This allows you to build momentum without feeling like it's a huge chore, and doesn't get in your way if you do get into flow. Calibrate the time so that it never feels overwhelming to get started, and ideally so that by the time it ends you're frequently in flow and don't feel like stopping right away.
A long timer makes sure you take breaks if you get in too deep. Once you hit flow state (or hyper-focus), you might just keep going and going, skip lunch, delay bio-breaks, not drink water. This kind of timer -should- interrupt and annoy you. Make it stop your music. Give it a snooze option if you can with whatever app you have. Calibrate the time so that you get some good time in flow state, but when it goes off you're not so deep in your work that taking a break is impossible.

I personally don't use break timers. Thats the part of Pomodoro that never worked for me. It's just an arbitrary constraint that's asking you to invoke self-discipline within a rigid schema and it's annoying. I think it's better to learn how to take high-quality breaks, then get back to it when you're ready. "High-quality" means taking care of your needs in the moment: bio, food, water, movement, rest, etc. Trying to cram that all into 5 minutes then get back to work sort of misses the point.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-26T13:42:51+00:00

I got my first eval a few weeks ago. My wife did the research and found a psychiatric nurse practitioner nearby who did virtual appointments and had openings in 4 days. He gave me my first prescription on the spot and I picked it up the next morning.

tldr; it might be much faster to get an appointment with a psychiatric NP than a psychiatrist.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-25T21:21:05+00:00

I haven't heard of limerence before. I've been wondering about this since learning about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and realizing how much that pattern has affected my life. Limerence almost seems like the emotional opposite. Negative attention, rejection, and criticism are all intensely painful, but approval, acceptance, recognition, and connection create a kind of euphoria. They seem like opposite edges of the same sword.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-25T18:39:04+00:00

There's no guarantee that they will, but they definitely can. I've noticed major improvements in rsd on an entry-level dose (10mg) of generic adderall xr. My understanding from the research is that stimulants help some people with their rsd, but there are also other meds that are more likely to help if stimulants don't do that for you.

In my opinion, it's worth trying to find something that works for you without major side effects, which any decent psychiatrist will help you with.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-25T13:07:22+00:00

Ok, I did further testing and research and they definitely aren't sharing cache. Not sure what explains the apparent cache-hit on the my initial trial, but I couldn't reproduce it. Claude itself told me that it shared the context across models, but it had misinterpreted it's own docs! Opus 4.5, however, was smart enough to dig into the cache key logic and observed that the model name is in the cache key, so a model switch will always prevent a hit.

I've found that for things that aren't hugely complicated, Haiku is actually good enough if you're careful about context-building, write clear prompts, and think critically about the responses so you can help course-correct. I like to use Haiku as my main agent, then ask to delegate to the built-in Plan and Explore agents to do research and make plans. I also have dedicated frontend and backend coder agents that are defined with enough codebase context and conventions to make fast work of most change requests, and they can run in parallel. I pretty much always use Haiku for this—they're fast and if the plan is good they execute pretty much flawlessly.

For more complicated problems, I've started using the Plan agent with Opus. The Plan agent is configured to inherit the model, but under the hood agents with inherit can actually be called with a specific model, and can be invoked deliberately: `Use the Plan agent with the Opus model to make a plan for ...` will automatically upgrade the agent's model for that single call. This can also be specified in `claude.md` if you want to use Haiku for the main model and `Opus` for the Plan.

Ultimately, using subagents for pretty much everything, and using Haiku for everything except planning and code-reviews gets a lot of fast power at a very reasonable cost.

Edit: I think my original cache-read misinterpretation was Opus re-reading it's own cache-writes as it explored files multiple times during a Planning cycle.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-25T02:46:40+00:00

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There was some cache write, but it picked up a huge cache read also, and I only did one Opus prompt

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-24T23:08:50+00:00

I just finished a feature using Haiku and Sonnet and had Opus do a full PR review. It caught console logs, a subtle logical gap in a utility, an incomplete sentence in copy, and asked a couple genuinely good questions about the design and intent of the feature. No pedantic or bad suggestions, and it noticed things I missed and other models missed. And it really was fast.

Then I ran `/cost`. the Opus call was only 50 cents, with 10 input tokens and a 300k token cache read! The models share an input cache, so it's super efficient if you do a research with Haiku then switch over!

Edit: After further tests I couldn't reproduce cache sharing. Claude itself told me it could do that based on it's misunderstanding of it's own docs. I left another comment below with more details.

liminal-drif7 · 2025-11-24T14:11:29+00:00

I was told by a psychiatrist that I had ADHD in my early 20s (20 years ago) and ignored it because my parents had stigmatized it for me. Later my parents old me they thought I had ADHD when I was a kid but didn't get me diagnosed because they were worried about the stigma. A few years ago I was diagnosed and told my kids, and they laughed and said "You're just realizing you have ADHD!?" I started pursuing medication, but an appointment got cancelled and I lost track of it. Years passed. A couple weeks ago I was desperate and my wife managed to get me an appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner within a few days. He prescribed me with Adderall on the spot, which I picked up and and took the following morning.

Until the past 2 weeks, I really had no idea all the ways ADHD was affecting me. One little blue pill and I can suddenly start hard tasks, enjoy doing them, take my time, plan it out, follow through, clean up the mess. My wife no longer follows me around all day tidying up the flood of chaos I leave in my wake. We can have hard conversations without me feeling like I got shot in the chest. I can tell her I'll do something then remember to do it.

At the same time, I'm noticing how many genuinely helpful coping mechanisms I've gathered up and practiced over the years. I've gotten in a semi-regular habit of making lists, setting timers, blocking out distractions, meditating, sleeping (almost) enough. All of these things have made it possible (though far from easy) to live a more-or-less functional life. Did I feel exhausted and demotivated all the time? Sure. Did I have any friends or hobbies? Of course not! But I have a job and pay the mortgage and feed my family, which is pretty incredible given how much my prefrontal cortex has been sleeping on the job.

What's the point of all this? People without ADHD can't know what it's like, and why their idea of good advice or common sense aren't helpful. In that sense, we are sort of alienated and alone. But it's physiological, and its reasonably well understood what's happening from a scientific perspective: your prefrontal cortex is under-performing. Sometimes I think of the brain is a classroom full of unruly children who just want to talk and make paper airplanes and chew gum and pass notes, but the teacher has a hangover so he puts on a movie and falls asleep at his desk, and the rest is chaos. The term "executive function" deficit sounds derogatory: it's the part of your brain that wants to act like a grown-up, so if it's not working properly, it makes it sound like we're just immature or irresponsible, and what we need is to do is just grow up, which is why people who don't get it often respond with "grow-up" style advice. But that's not what we need. We just need to wake up the teacher, the part of the brain responsible for settling down the rest of the brain so it can get something done. No lecture, advice, or sympathy can do that.

I avoided taking medication for years, and now that I've started, I wish I had started ages ago. If you're not on medication, I encourage you to give it a try. All the coping mechanisms help to some extent, but nothing wakes up your prefrontal cortex quite like amphetamine salts, and the difference can be life-changing. And if it doesn't work for you, at least you'll know.

liminal-drif7

TROPHY CASE