You wouldn't download a car
If what they did isn't stealing then they should have no problem with people training off of them.
Fairness isn’t the relevant lens. Copyright isn’t the right lens either. This is purely might-makes-right, where the winner is whoever has the best offence and best defence.
It is only hypocritical when they bitch about things being unfair, or try to use copyright arguments in the court system.
Which is what they actively do exactly at the same time.
> copyright arguments in the court system
Where else are you going to make those arguments?
Copyrighted works plainly have value for Anthropic. Why aren't they paying for that value?
As a vigorous, thrusting company surely Anthropic has the wherewithal to pay for it. And if they don't, if all they can do is steal, if all they represent is the theft of the labor of others, then what good are they?
Anthropic likes to talk big on ethics: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claudes-constitution
When will they start showing some?
Well their justification is that distillation is bad because it means baddies can get their own models without their safeguards and then make anthrax nukes or whatever. Even though it's self serving, it's at least self-consistent.
You wouldn't train an AI on a car, would you