"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that his team be allowed to deploy Claude's software in whatever manner they deemed pertinent, including applications for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weaponry, which were "red lines" for Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. By Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump had ordered a six-month phaseout of all uses of Claude at the federal level."
"The fallout for Anthropic has been remarkable. It's the first-ever American company to be deemed a supply-chain risk, which means it's already lost several users across the federal government. But something even stranger emerged in the aftermath: a lotta liberal goodwill. Social media campaigners encouraged their followers, even the A.I. skeptics, to download Claude en masse."
"By Monday morning, there was a Claude service outage that Anthropic attributed to "unprecedented demand" for its products. Even Sen. Brian Schatz and Katy Perry got in on the whole thing."
Anthropic faced a critical ethical test when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded unrestricted use of Claude for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. CEO Dario Amodei rejected these demands as violations of the company's stated ethical boundaries. President Trump responded by ordering a six-month phaseout of Claude across federal agencies and designating Anthropic a supply-chain risk to national security, effectively blocking military contractors from future partnerships. OpenAI received the resulting federal contract instead. Despite this severe business setback, Anthropic experienced unexpected public support, with social media campaigns encouraging mass downloads of Claude. The surge in demand caused service outages attributed to unprecedented usage levels, with prominent figures including Senator Brian Schatz and Katy Perry participating in the grassroots support movement.
#ai-ethics #pentagon-contract-dispute #autonomous-weapons #government-surveillance #public-support-mobilization
Read at Slate Magazine
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