Anthropic and the Pentagon are clashing over AI use in autonomous weapons and surveillance, raising high-stakes questions about national security, corporate control, and who sets the rules for military AI.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday that he “cannot in good conscience accede” to the Pentagon’s demands to give the military unrestricted access to its AI systems.
The Pentagon has given Anthropic until Friday to loosen AI guardrails or face potential penalties, escalating a high-stakes dispute that raises questions about government leverage, vendor dependence, and investor confidence in defense tech.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon for a tense discussion over the military’s use of Claude. Hegseth has threatened to designate Anthropic a “supply chain risk.”
Following a Pro Publica report that Microsoft was using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, the company said it’s made changes to ensure this will no longer happen.