The AI battle: Defence secretary Pete Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Thursday said the artificial intelligence company “cannot in good conscience accede” to Pentagon demands for unrestricted use of its technology, escalating an unusually public standoff with the Donald Trump administration that could cost the firm its government contract as early as Friday.The company behind the AI chatbot Claude said it remains open to negotiations, reported AP, but warned that revised contract language from the defense department “made virtually no progress on preventing Claude’s use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons.”Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell pushed back on those concerns, writing on social media that the military “has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement.” Anthropic’s internal policies prohibit such uses. The company is currently the only major AI developer — alongside firms such as Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI — that has not agreed to supply its technology to a new internal U.S. military network.“It is the Department’s prerogative to select contractors most aligned with their vision,” Amodei said in a statement. “But given the substantial value that Anthropic’s technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they reconsider.” The dispute intensified after defense secretary Pete Hegseth issued an ultimatum on Tuesday following a meeting with Amodei: allow unrestricted military use of Anthropic’s AI technology by Friday or risk losing the Pentagon contract. Officials also warned that the company could be designated a supply-chain risk or that the Defense Production Act — a Cold War-era law — could be invoked to grant the military broader authority over its products.Amodei criticised the threats as inconsistent, saying that “those latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.”Parnell reiterated that the Pentagon seeks to “use Anthropic’s model for all lawful purposes,” without specifying what those uses would include. He argued that wider access to the technology is necessary to avoid “jeopardizing critical military operations.”“We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions,” he said.Negotiations between the two sides have been ongoing for months. Amodei said that if the Pentagon does not revise its position, Anthropic “will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider.”The public nature of the dispute has drawn criticism on Capitol Hill.Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the Pentagon had handled the issue unprofessionally and suggested Anthropic was “trying to do their best to help us from ourselves.”“Why in the hell are we having this discussion in public?” Tillis told reporters. “This is not the way you deal with a strategic vendor that has contracts.”He added, “When a company is resisting a market opportunity for fear of negative consequences, you should listen to them and then behind closed doors figure out what they’re really trying to solve.”Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was “deeply disturbed” by reports that the Pentagon was “working to bully a leading U.S. company.”“Unfortunately, this is further indication that the Department of Defense seeks to completely ignore AI governance,” Warner said. It “further underscores the need for Congress to enact strong, binding AI governance mechanisms for national security contexts.”Pentagon officials maintain that AI systems will be used in accordance with the law, even as the department has sought to reshape its internal legal culture.Hegseth told Fox News last February that the military wants lawyers who provide constitutional advice but do not serve as “roadblocks.” The same month, he dismissed the Army and Air Force’s top legal officers without explanation. The Navy’s top lawyer had resigned shortly after the 2024 election.
