The dispute between Anthropic and the Defense Department has escalated in recent days, with officials publicly shaming the AI company on social media.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this week. He gave the company until Friday to commit to changing the terms of its contract to allow “all lawful uses” of its models. Hegseth praised Anthropic’s products during the meeting and said the Defense Department wants to continue working with Anthropic, according to a source familiar with the conversation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Some experts say the dispute has boiled down to a clash of emotions rather than a substantive disagreement over how artificial intelligence should be deployed. “This is an unnecessary controversy, in my opinion,” says Michael Horowitz, an expert on the military use of AI and a former deputy assistant secretary for emerging technologies at the Pentagon. “It’s about theoretical use cases that are not under discussion right now.”
Horowitz says Anthropic has so far supported all methods proposed by the Defense Department using its technology. He added, “I believe the Pentagon and Anthropic are currently in agreement about use cases where the technology is not ready for prime time.”
Anthropic was founded on the idea that AI should be built with security at its core. In January, Amoedi wrote a blog post about the risks of powerful artificial intelligence, touching on the dangers of fully autonomous AI-controlled weapons.
“These weapons also have legitimate uses in defense of democracy,” Amodei wrote. “But they are a dangerous weapon to use.”
Additional reporting by Paresh Dave.
This story originally appeared on WIRED.com
<a href