> “The government is supposed to be more powerful than private companies,”
Altman is being very disingenuous here. Anthropic has never, as far as I'm aware, taken the position that it's abandoning the democratic process or that it should be more powerful than government.
They've taken the position that some uses of their product are ethically objectionable to them, and they won't allow it. They're not telling the government what it can or cannot do generally, they're only setting rules about the use of their own product.
That seems entirely fair to me. To argue that you are not allowed to operate according to your own ethical sensibilities seems not just outrageous, but dangerously oppressive.