I was going to say that I was surprised that enough "normal" users had heard about the Pentagon news story that it would make a difference.
Then I remembered that the app store rankings [1] seem to be based on activity from just the past day or so.
And so a lot of "plugged-in" users switching to Claude all at once then would be enough to briefly send Claude to #1, since the migration would be sizeable in comparison to the normal daily download baseline.
But we can also expect that this would probably be just a blip for a couple of days, as it's unlikely to make much difference in the baseline ratio for the general population.
I cancelled ChatGPT and downloaded Claude mobile 1 day before the controversy because I decided to go all in on Claude Code. The chat app isn't quite as good as ChatGPT, feels like a year behind in integration with stuff like web search and retrieval. But it does the job.
It’s irritating to me that on iOS at least I can’t be logged in with both my work AND home Claude instances in the native app. I instead have to log in to the app with one and use a desktop shortcut to claude.ai for the other.
Yeah, being able to switch quickly between amounts is my number one request for the iOS app right now. Logging in on the browser is a good idea though.
So dumb, I have to think it's astroturfed. Anthropic states they're not willing to help with autonomous weapons because it's not good enough yet, and suddenly everyone cancels their OAI subscription? I just don't get it
Do any autonomous weapons have an LLM usecase yet? As opposed to say, specialized visual ML stuff that can fit on a small portable system.
The DoD office staff using it for information analysis, similar to Palantir providing data integration software, isn't quite the same as using it for weapons.
I can't prove there was no astroturfing, but I was personally absolutely furious and hard-deleted my account Friday evening. I'm not sure how to bridge the gap in understanding, this story was extremely radicalizing for me, I'm genuinely hoping now that OpenAI burns to the ground.
The sticking point seems to be that Anthropic didn't want to help the Trump regime spying on its own citizens (by using Claude to sift through mass-surveillance data)
When has the US govt and its allies been secretive about spying on non-citizens? We literally have agreements with European allies to collaborate on it.
I read the terms regarding mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Both OpenAI and Anthropic had similar holdbacks AFAICT. [0]
> The Pentagon has agreed to OpenAI's rules for deploying its technology safely in classified settings, though no contract has been signed, a source familiar with the talks tells Axios.
> Why it matters: The Pentagon has blasted OpenAI rival Anthropic for days, contending its red lines for AI use in the military -- mass surveillance and autonomous weapons -- are philosophical and "woke."
> Now, the department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, appears to have accepted OpenAI's similar conditions.
One big difference
OpenAI exec becomes top Trump donor with $25 million gift [1]
I guess that makes it "less woke". This is reprehensible political bullshit.
This is hardly surprising given that OpenAI already signed a military contract. [0]
Where was the open letter then? No-one cared.
Recently, Claude was already used by the administration for the operation in Venezuela [1] alongside Palantir. Anthropic did nothing at the time and again...
No-one cared.
Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No? The decision for the contract was already predetermined for OpenAI, even with the open letter.
So the question is, why wasn't the open letter against OpenAI done last year when they signed that first military contract?
Either way, it seems that OpenAI and Anthropic were all OK with the US government using their models for warfare so really there is no point in defending both of them or even the employees who knew beforehand.
>Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No?
DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here.
"Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now: Mass domestic surveillance... Fully autonomous weapons." https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war
>So the question is, why wasn't the open letter against OpenAI done last year when they signed that first military contract?
again, this story isn't about people that are against any military contract.
How sure are we that something fishy isn't going on with the models and the alignment research teams and the answers the model is giving? Like maybe Claude's alignment made it worse at trying to mask as Allied Magacomputer than GPT and that's why they're up in arms?
I went the opposite and deleted Claude and replaced it with OpenAI - The money the US Military will bring in is going to elevate ChatGPT to levels the others cannot match
the claude contract was only 100M/year. about 0.7% of Claude's 14B revenue run rate. Not sure we know anything about the number for openai's new contract.
I was going to say that I was surprised that enough "normal" users had heard about the Pentagon news story that it would make a difference.
Then I remembered that the app store rankings [1] seem to be based on activity from just the past day or so.
And so a lot of "plugged-in" users switching to Claude all at once then would be enough to briefly send Claude to #1, since the migration would be sizeable in comparison to the normal daily download baseline.
But we can also expect that this would probably be just a blip for a couple of days, as it's unlikely to make much difference in the baseline ratio for the general population.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/iphone/charts
I cancelled ChatGPT and downloaded Claude mobile 1 day before the controversy because I decided to go all in on Claude Code. The chat app isn't quite as good as ChatGPT, feels like a year behind in integration with stuff like web search and retrieval. But it does the job.
It’s irritating to me that on iOS at least I can’t be logged in with both my work AND home Claude instances in the native app. I instead have to log in to the app with one and use a desktop shortcut to claude.ai for the other.
Yeah, being able to switch quickly between amounts is my number one request for the iOS app right now. Logging in on the browser is a good idea though.
So dumb, I have to think it's astroturfed. Anthropic states they're not willing to help with autonomous weapons because it's not good enough yet, and suddenly everyone cancels their OAI subscription? I just don't get it
I think it’s from a perception (right or wrong) that OpenAI engineered this kerfuffle to hurt a competitor and cozy up to the administration
Most people’s LLM use cases don’t involve autonomous weapons
Do any autonomous weapons have an LLM usecase yet? As opposed to say, specialized visual ML stuff that can fit on a small portable system.
The DoD office staff using it for information analysis, similar to Palantir providing data integration software, isn't quite the same as using it for weapons.
>As opposed to say, specialized visual ML stuff that can fit on a small portable system.
What do you think writes the code for that and trains the models?
“everyone” could be one person. these internet reported movements rarely have meaningful impact
Some might be but dont be so sure. Theres a lot of hatred in our country over politics and sides dont matter, all sides can be quite hateful.
I can't prove there was no astroturfing, but I was personally absolutely furious and hard-deleted my account Friday evening. I'm not sure how to bridge the gap in understanding, this story was extremely radicalizing for me, I'm genuinely hoping now that OpenAI burns to the ground.
The sticking point seems to be that Anthropic didn't want to help the Trump regime spying on its own citizens (by using Claude to sift through mass-surveillance data)
I love Claude, but I’m personally rooting for Dick’s Sporting Goods to take the #1 spot
[previous discussion]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47202032
The sheer irony of admitting spying on the global population from both.
The Patriot Act and spying on US citizens was a major issue a decade ago.
The prevalence of data and a general sense of powerlessness means this won't get talked about much sadly.
The sheer naivete to think the United States has any legal or moral obligation to respect the privacy of the global population.
When has the US govt and its allies been secretive about spying on non-citizens? We literally have agreements with European allies to collaborate on it.
If it’s in the cloud it’s not your computer. I assume there is no privacy in the cloud unless it’s locally encrypted and only stored there.
I read the terms regarding mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Both OpenAI and Anthropic had similar holdbacks AFAICT. [0]
> The Pentagon has agreed to OpenAI's rules for deploying its technology safely in classified settings, though no contract has been signed, a source familiar with the talks tells Axios.
> Why it matters: The Pentagon has blasted OpenAI rival Anthropic for days, contending its red lines for AI use in the military -- mass surveillance and autonomous weapons -- are philosophical and "woke."
> Now, the department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, appears to have accepted OpenAI's similar conditions.
One big difference
OpenAI exec becomes top Trump donor with $25 million gift [1]
I guess that makes it "less woke". This is reprehensible political bullshit.
[0] https://archive.ph/9NcMf#selection-579.0-611.135
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/brockman-openai-top-trum...
“ though no contract has been signed”
Is doing a lot of work here
No, OpenAI has consented to "all legal use" whereas Anthropic required the redlines to be in the ToS itself, regardless of what's legal.
So for all intents and purposes the DoD can simply ignore OAI's redlines.
This is hardly surprising given that OpenAI already signed a military contract. [0]
Where was the open letter then? No-one cared.
Recently, Claude was already used by the administration for the operation in Venezuela [1] alongside Palantir. Anthropic did nothing at the time and again...
No-one cared.
Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No? The decision for the contract was already predetermined for OpenAI, even with the open letter.
So the question is, why wasn't the open letter against OpenAI done last year when they signed that first military contract?
Either way, it seems that OpenAI and Anthropic were all OK with the US government using their models for warfare so really there is no point in defending both of them or even the employees who knew beforehand.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/17/openai-mi...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/14/us-milita...
>Now everyone cares when Anthropic finally said No?
DoD started asking for the ability to do more stuff. That's the issue here. "Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now: Mass domestic surveillance... Fully autonomous weapons." https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war
>So the question is, why wasn't the open letter against OpenAI done last year when they signed that first military contract?
again, this story isn't about people that are against any military contract.
How sure are we that something fishy isn't going on with the models and the alignment research teams and the answers the model is giving? Like maybe Claude's alignment made it worse at trying to mask as Allied Magacomputer than GPT and that's why they're up in arms?
[dead]
I went the opposite and deleted Claude and replaced it with OpenAI - The money the US Military will bring in is going to elevate ChatGPT to levels the others cannot match
the claude contract was only 100M/year. about 0.7% of Claude's 14B revenue run rate. Not sure we know anything about the number for openai's new contract.