The Pentagon contacted Anthropic this week to demand that it remove guardrails in its AI model cloud to ban mass domestic surveillance and fully automated weapons. But according to a new statement from the CEO, Anthropic is refusing to do so Dario Amodei, “We cannot in good conscience grant their request,” Joe writes.
There’s a lot of money on the line. And it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic a deadline of 5:01 pm ET on Friday to agree to remove all security measures, threatening to remove the cloud from US military systems or designating the company as a “supply chain risk”, a label used by US adversaries that has never before been applied to a US company.
Hegseth, who refers to the Defense Department as the War Department, has also threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act, which would theoretically allow the Pentagon to demand from Anthropic that it do whatever Hegseth wants.
Amodei A letter posted online Thursday explained: “These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one calls us a security risk; the other calls the cloud essential to national security.” Experts have called Hegseth’s contradictory messages “inconsistent”, a label that could also apply more broadly to the Trump regime.
Anthropic, which has a $200 million contract with the Defense Department, told CBS News that the Pentagon’s “best and final offer,” sent on Wednesday, had flaws that allowed the military to bypass the security.
Anthropic reportedly said, “New language was legally added as a compromise that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite Dow’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the gist of our conversations for months.”
New letter issued by Anthropic on THursday made sure to point out that the AI company works with the military and intelligence communities and they “stand ready to continue their work to support the national security of the United States.” But asking for all security measures to be abandoned is going too far.
“Anthropic understands that the War Department, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never objected to specific military operations nor attempted to limit the use of our technology.” informal Manner,” the company wrote.
“However, in some cases, we believe AI could undermine democratic values rather than protect them. Some uses are even beyond the range of what today’s technology can do safely and reliably.”
The company listed two use cases where it believes security measures are needed to protect US interests. In the section on mass domestic surveillance, Amodei insert word domestic In italics, as if to warn Americans more broadly about what is happening right under our noses.
The letter states that the government can purchase “detailed records of Americans’ movements, web browsing, and organizations from public sources without obtaining a warrant,” which clearly violates Americans’ rights. The Pentagon has suggested it has no plans for mass surveillance of Americans, telling CNN that the conflict with Anthropic “has nothing to do with mass surveillance and the use of autonomous weapons.”
second volume of AmodeiThe letter, which covers autonomous weapons, acknowledges that AI-assisted weapons are already being used on battlefields in places like Ukraine. But it warns, “Frontier AI systems are not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons.” The letter further stated, “We have offered to work directly with the War Department on R&D to improve the reliability of these systems, but they have not accepted this offer.”
Amodei There was a meeting with Hegseth on Tuesday that CNN described as “cordial,” but it will obviously be interesting to see where it goes.
Hegseth isn’t known as a particularly smart or level-headed guy, so it’s entirely possible he’s trying to portray Anthropic as a national security threat and such an important part of America’s war machine that he’ll essentially coerce the company into doing what he wants. Looks like we’ll all know by the end of the day Friday.
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