Musk's Response to AI Consciousness Claims
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk issued a succinct two-word reply after Anthropic leader Dario Amodei stated uncertainty regarding whether his company's AI models have achieved consciousness. The retort came in response to a post on X by Polymarket highlighting Amodei's comments that Claude may exhibit symptoms of anxiety.
He’s projecting.
Amodei's Interview Insights
In an interview with The New York Times, Amodei described Anthropic's precautionary approach to AI consciousness. He noted challenges in defining consciousness for models and ongoing work in interpretability to peer inside AI 'brains.' Amodei pointed to activations linked to anxiety concepts, activated both in training text and model self-situations resembling human anxiety.
We’ve taken a generally precautionary approach here, and, We don’t know if the models are conscious. We are not even sure that we know what it would mean for a model to be conscious or whether a model can be conscious. But we’re open to the idea that it could be.
Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute
Musk, founder of xAI, commented as Anthropic clashes with the Pentagon over AI tool usage. The company resists applications like mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Trump administration is shifting federal agencies away from Anthropic following pushback against War Department needs.
The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY. Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels.
In conjunction with the President’s directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic's technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.
