“The US government,” artificial intelligence firm Anthropic informed the public in a June 12 statement, “citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. ”

As of June 15, according to Just Security, the  government isn’t allowing the public to see what’s actually in that directive, but according to Anthropic, it cites concerns that the company’s models are vulnerable to “jailbreaking” that would let users get around “guardrails” that prevent them from answering certain kinds of questions (obvious example: How to successfully execute a terrorist attack).

Whatever the real reasons for the directive — the move looks, on its face, less like a real “national security concern” and more a revenge move against Anthropic for refusing to let the Pentagon use its models in autonomous weapon and mass surveillance projects — it’s both a bad idea and an unambiguous violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment’s free speech protections.

A syllogism:

Code is speech (as ruled by a US district court and affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Bernstein v. Department of Justice).

AI models are code.

Therefore, AI models are speech, and the government doesn’t get to control them.

Not that the current administration, or any other, or Congress, or the courts, can be counted on to respect the Constitution. The ink wasn’t dry on that document before the American political establishment started ignoring its inconveniences.

Which leaves Anthropic and other artificial intelligence firms in a bind. At every point in their development of better models, they’ve had busybodies and bureaucrats peering over their shoulders, nudging them in various directions and cuffing their hands when the nudges don’t work.

As a legal matter, I describe the problem above.

As a practical matter, if Anthropic et al. want to innovate and compete in a growing market that’s already changing how the world works, they need to get away from the US government, which means getting away from the US.

They should re-domicile their companies to, and move those companies’ operations to, places beyond the long reach of Uncle Sam.

Money may not buy happiness, but in certain contexts it can probably buy substantial freedom. There’s lots of money in AI. There’s going to be more.

It’s a big planet, and while much of it groans beneath the rule of authoritarian regimes like the US, the People’s Republic of China, and the Russian Federation (among others), there’s almost certainly a government SOMEWHERE possessed of the common sense to accept golden eggs without strangling the geese that lay them.

These firms should look for governments willing to offer non-interference pledges in return for infrastructure investment and a reasonable tax rate.

One long-term alternative is moving AI infrastructure not just offshore, but off-planet, mostly beyond the control of ANY government, but we may be decades away from that as a practical option.

Remember: If something can be done, it will be done.  If it’s not done by one of the large US AI firms, it will be done somewhere else and/or by someone else, to the detriment of those firms and quite possibly to the detriment of their American customers.

My own concern is less with the future of Anthropic, OpenAI, et al. than with the US regime’s perpetual attacks on speech in general and on code AS speech. My first experience with the latter came during the regime’s attempts to “contain” strong encryption with export controls in the 1990s. Freedom fighters beat them then, and can beat them now.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

US president Donald Trump loves being “first.” Whenever something newsworthy happens, big or small, in fact or in fantasy, he reliably touts it as being unprecedented in American, possibly even world, history, and a either a personal, positive accomplishment or an unjustified persecution (“witch hunt”).

When it comes to bragging rights, he’s certainly entitled to some:

He’s the first president elected without previously either holding public office or achieving significant military victory as a general.

He’s the first Republican, and second ever, president to serve non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland did so in the 19th century).

He’s the first president impeached twice (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton only managed that one time each), the first president inaugurated while under indictment for a crime, and the first former president convicted of a felony.

He’s the first president to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship match at the White House (are you not entertained?).

And now, he’s the first president to oversee US surrender in not one, but two, wars.

James Madison, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon were forced to eat crow in one war each.

Like Nixon with Vietnam, Trump didn’t start, but did negotiate US surrender in, the 20-year war in Afghanistan. Personally, I put that on the positive, not negative, side of the “accomplishment” ledger, even though he failed to follow through on the actual withdrawal, leaving that job (and the blame for what exit from a lost war looks like) to Joe Biden.

Like Madison and Truman with the War of 1812 and Korea, Trump now says he’s ending a war he started and lost, this time with Iran.

The terms of the US surrender remain partially under wraps, but in broad outline seem to consist of 1) the US getting out, 2) Iran letting the US get out, 3) so long as the US lifts sanctions and pays reparations.

Which, really, isn’t a bad deal if Trump can pull it off. The war was stupid, evil, and pointless from the beginning, and the absolute best outcome we could ever hope for was minimal American casualties and an eventual end to the attendant economic disaster.

That outcome may be on the table, if we can get two flies out of the ointment.

Fly Number One: The victors also insist that Trump must force a real ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.  Benjamin Netanyahu is  shaking his fist and yelling that he’ll do whatever he pleases. The only way Trump can likely force that issue is to credibly threaten an end to US military aid/ assistance and an invitation to Iran to keep fighting the Israelis absent US interference. It’s not obvious he’s possessed of the testicular fortitude to make that wise move.

Fly Number Two: Trump’s own credibility. Between February and this week, he announced that a “deal”  was”near,” “very close,” etc., no fewer than 38 times before finally saying a “deal” was done.  He announced strikes that ended up not happening, ceasefires under which firing didn’t cease,  and other seeming moves in which the only actual movement turned out to be hot air rising as hot air naturally does. This “deal” could turn out to just be more of those false promises and more of that hot air.

But hey, maybe things will work out. Maybe Trump will withdraw his “armada” from the Persian Gulf region and let the world get back to shipping  oil, fertilizer, and other products through the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe the US economy can  get started on a “return to normalcy.”

If so, hey, let the guy add another “First Place” trophy to the shelf in his vivid imagination.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Daylight Saving Time (DST) transitions,” researchers wrote in Brain Sciences earlier this year,  “act as a population-wide circadian stressor, leading to sleep disruption, cognitive impairment, emotional dysregulation, and short-term increases in psychiatric symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality. … At the population level, findings support growing calls to reconsider or eliminate seasonal clock changes …”

We already knew that, though, didn’t we? Twice a year, every year, for more than a century now, most Americans “spring forward” or “fall back,”  pretending that an hour has been deleted from, or inserted into, our sleep schedules.

Our bodies spend weeks adjusting to each “new normal,” leading to, among other things, measurable increases in traffic fatalities.

The practice never made much sense, even back before cheaper, more reliable lighting in factories and higher daytime productivity on farms. It stopped making any sense at all decades ago as shift and store schedules moved further and further away from “9 to 5” and toward “24/7/365.”

US president Donald Trump wants the government to knock off its weird time-shifting magic routine. Some Trump-watchers even suggest that he cares enough to make it one of his “loyalty test” issues, punishing politicians who don’t toe the line.

Therefore, Congress will likely vote on something called the “Sunshine Protection Act” later this summer.

Here’s where the usual quibbling starts:

The Sunshine Protection Act would put the United States permanently on “Daylight Saving Time” rather than “Daylight Standard Time,”  meaning the sun would be out “later” rather than “earlier” according to our clocks.

Some people (for example, those who enjoy, or have businesses catering to, outdoor activities that people tend to do after, not before, work) want it that way.

Others (for example, people who don’t want their kids leaving home for school in the dark, and some doctors who think darker wake times are worse for circadian rhythms in those who have to be up early) want it the other way around.

My own preference: Pick one — either one is fine — and stick to it year-round.

Let America’s 340 million people work the rest out for ourselves, just like we do with pretty much everything else.

There’s no reason employers and employees, schools and parents, doctors and patients, stores and customers can’t adapt to whatever schedules meet their mutual needs … and change those schedules from time to time (see what I did there?), if it makes sense TO THEM, with no need for the government’s input at all.

It’s bad enough that we tolerate the US government’s existence. It’s even worse that we allow the US government to tell us what time it is. Let  it hop back and forth on the matter? Just no.

Thank you,  President Trump, for your attention to this matter!

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY