Earlier today, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared on Twitter that he is directing the War Department to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk. This action comes after months of negotiations that reached an impasse over two exceptions we requested for the lawful use of our AI models, the cloud: mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons.
We have not yet received direct communication from the War Department or the White House on the status of our negotiations.
We have tried in good faith to reach an agreement with the War Department, making it clear that we support all legitimate uses of AI for national security except for the two narrow exceptions above. To the best of our knowledge, these exceptions have not affected a single government mission to date.
We retained our exceptions for two reasons. First, we do not believe that today’s leading AI models are reliable enough to be used in fully autonomous weapons. Allowing existing models to be used in this manner would put America’s warfighters and civilians at risk. Second, we believe that mass domestic surveillance of Americans is a violation of fundamental rights.
Designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk would be an unprecedented action – historically reserved for US adversaries, that had never been publicly applied to a US company before. We are extremely saddened by these developments. As the first Frontier AI company to deploy models into classified US government networks, Anthropic has supported US war fighters through June 2024 and has every intention of continuing to do so.
We believe this designation would be legally inappropriate and would set a dangerous precedent for any US company interacting with the government.
No amount of threats or punishment from the War Department will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.
What does this mean for our customers
Secretary Hegseth believes that this designation will prohibit anyone doing business with the Army from doing business with Anthropic. The Secretary does not have the statutory authority to endorse this statement. Legally, a supply chain risk designation under 10 USC 3252 can only extend to the use of the cloud as part of War Department contracts – it cannot affect how contractors use the cloud to serve other customers.
In practice, this means:
- If you are an individual customer or have a commercial contract with AnthropicYour access to the cloud – through our API, claude.ai, or any of our products – is completely unaffected.
- If you are a War Department contractorThis designation – if formally adopted – will only affect your use of the cloud on War Department contract work. Your use for any other purpose is unaffected.
Our sales and support teams are ready to answer any questions you may have.
We are extremely grateful to our users and our industry peers, policy makers, veterans and members of the public who have extended their support in recent days. Thank you. Above all, our priorities are to protect our customers from any disruption caused by these extraordinary events and to work with the Department of War to ensure a smooth transition for them, for our soldiers, and for U.S. military operations.
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