AI Showdown: Anthropic Defies Pentagon
Anthropic refuses Pentagon demands over AI safeguards, citing risks of mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons in a growing AI policy clash.
Anthropic has said it will not back down in its fight with the US Department of Defense (DoD) over the use of its artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
The firm's Chief Executive, Dario Amodei, said on Thursday that his company would prefer not to work with the Pentagon, rather than agree to uses of its technology that could "undermine democratic values rather than protect them."
His comments came two days after a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth demanded Anthropic accept "any lawful use" of its tools. The meeting ended with a threat to remove Anthropic from the DoD's supply chain.
Amodei said, "These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good faith accede to their request."
The issue for Anthropic is the potential use of its AI tools, such as Cloud, for two purposes: "mass domestic surveillance" and "fully autonomous weapons."
Emody said, "Such use cases have never been included in our contract with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now."
The Department of War is another name for the Department of Defense under an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump in September.
Emody said, "If the Department decides to offboard Anthropic, we will work to ensure a smooth transition to another provider."
An Anthropic spokesperson said on Thursday that although the company received updated terms for its contract from the DoD on Wednesday night, it shows that "almost no progress has been made in preventing Cloud's use for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons."
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He said, "New language created as part of the agreement was combined with legal language, allowing those safeguards to be ignored at will." "Despite recent public statements from the [Department of War], these minor safeguards have been a key topic of our discussions for months."
A Defense Department representative could not be reached for comment.
US Defense Undersecretary Emil Michael personally attacked Amodei on Thursday night, writing on X that the executive "wants nothing more than to personally control the US military and has no problem jeopardizing our nation's security."
A Pentagon official previously told that if Anthropic refuses to comply, Hegseth will ensure the Defense Production Act is invoked against the company.
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This act essentially gives the US President the authority to deem a company or its product so essential that the government can require it to meet defense needs.
But Hegseth also threatened to call Anthropic a "supply chain risk," implying that the company would not be considered safe enough for government use.
A person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that tensions between Anthropic and the Pentagon "date back several months," before it became public knowledge that the cloud was used as part of the US operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Although Amodei did not clarify how the DoD could or has used Anthropic for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, he wrote in a company blog post that AI could be used to "transform scattered, innocuous data into a complete picture of any individual's life—automatically and at scale."
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Amodei said, "We support the use of AI for legitimate foreign intelligence and counterintelligence missions." "But using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is antithetical to Democratic values."
Regarding the use of AI in weapons, Amodei said that even today's most advanced and capable AI systems "aren't reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons."
Amodei said, "We will not knowingly deliver a product that endangers America's warfighters and civilians." "Without proper oversight, fully autonomous weapons cannot be trusted with the critical decisions our highly trained, professional soldiers make every day. They need to be deployed with proper protections, which don't exist today."
He said that Anthropic "had offered to work directly with the Department of War on R&D to improve the reliability of these systems, but they have not accepted the offer."
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