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0A 'Fight About Vibes' Drove the Pentagon's Breakup with Anthropic
In his first face-to-face meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei made his case about the risks of AI-controlled autonomous weapons.
Hegseth didn't want to hear it, even from a CEO whose company developed AI tools that have become instrumental for the military. "No CEO is going to tell our war fighters what they can and cannot do," Hegseth said after cutting off Amodei midsentence in the meeting on Feb. 24, according to people familiar with the matter.
The rupture between the two men, with sharply contrasting personalities and worldviews, was never resolved. And now the Trump administration finds itself at loggerheads with a homegrown giant of the industry.
"This is a fight about vibes and personalities masquerading as a policy dispute," said Michael Horowitz, a former Defense Department official who worked on AI policy. On Friday, President Trump directed all federal agencies to stop working with Anthropic and attacked the company's executives for being "leftwing nutjobs."
In an ironic twist, minutes before his post, Trump authorized strikes on Iran—attacks that were planned with the involvement of Anthropic's Claude models, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Amodei co-founded Anthropic in 2021 after leaving OpenAI because he felt the company was prioritizing business goals over AI safety. He is known to some of his employees as "Professor Panda." Amodei and Anthropic's co-founders committed to donating 80% of his founding stock to charity—a stake now worth billions of dollars.
OpenAI has a different political profile than Anthropic: The company has praised Trump's tech strategy and promised investments to build data centers for training AI models. OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife donated $25 million to a Trump aligned super political-action committee last year.
生词好句
vibe 英 [vaɪb] 美 [vaɪb] n. （难以言喻的）氛围感，基调，（一种直觉上的）感受，气场
I'm not feeling the vibe here. 我感觉这里气场不对。
This place has a really chill vibe. 这里氛围/气场很松弛。
drive 英 [draɪv] 美 [draɪv] v. 驱使
The adversity of the career drove her to reinvent herself to stay relevant.职业生涯的逆境促使她重塑自己以保持竞争力/影响力。
Pentagon 英 [ˈpentəɡən] 美 [ˈpentəɡɑːn] n. 五角大楼，美国国防部；五边形
make one's case 把自己的立场/理由说清楚
During the summit, the climate activist stood up and made his case for immediate carbon‑neutral policies.在峰会期间，气候活动人士站了起来，提出了立即实施碳中和政策的理由。
instrumental 英 [ˌɪnstrəˈmentl] 美 [ˌɪnstrəˈmentl] adj. 举足轻重的，不可或缺的
The invention of the printing press was instrumental in dismantling the monopoly on knowledge.印刷机的发明，对于打破知识垄断起到了决定性的作用。
rupture 英 [ˈrʌptʃə(r)] 美 [ˈrʌptʃər] n. 破裂
The rupture between the superstar and the front office became irreparable after the trade demand was leaked.在转会要求被曝光之后，这位超级巨星和管理层之间的裂痕彻底无法修复。
contrasting adj. 截然不同的（very different in style color or attitude）
at loggerheads with 与…… 针锋相对，僵持不下
loggerhead n. 长柄的铁棍
After the restructuring, the team manager found herself at loggerheads with the stream leader over the maintenance of projects.重组后，团队经理发现自己与下属团队的领导在项目维护问题上发生了争执。
masquerade 英 [ˌmæskəˈreɪd] 美 [ˌmæskəˈreɪd] v. 伪装，冒充；n. 化妆舞会
近义词辨析：disguise vs. masquerade
disguise也表示伪装，但masquerade更有讽刺色彩，因为它强调主动欺骗，刻意掩盖。
The repeated micromanagement masquerades as mentorship, obscuring the team's struggles.反复的微观管理（对员工的不合理监控）伪装成了“指导”，去掩盖团队的挣扎。
nutjob 英 [ˈnʌtdʒɒb] 美 [ˈnʌtdʒɑːb] n. 疯子，神经病
