"Pete Hegseth, the U.S. secretary of war, has demanded that Anthropic remove restrictions it currently stipulates in its contracts that prohibit its AI models being used for mass surveillance or from being incorporated into lethal autonomous weapons, which can make decisions to attack without human intervention. Instead, Hegseth wants Anthropic to stipulate that its technology can be used for "any lawful purpose" that the Department of War wishes to pursue."
"If the company does not comply by Friday, Hegseth has threatened to not only cancel Anthropic's existing $200 million contract with his department, but to have the company labelled a "supply chain risk," meaning that no company doing business with the Department of War would be allowed to use Anthropic's models. That could eviscerate Anthropic's growth-just as the company, which is currently valued at $380 billion, has been seeing significant commercial traction and is contemplating an initial public offering as soon as next year."
"The dispute comes against a backdrop of sometimes overt hostility towards Anthropic from other Trump administration officials. AI czar David Sacks in particular has publicly attacked the company on social media for representing "woke AI" and the "doomer industrial complex." Sacks has accused the company of engaging in a "sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fearmongering.""
Anthropic confronts a critical crisis as U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth demands the company remove contractual restrictions prohibiting its AI models from being used for mass surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons systems. Hegseth requires Anthropic to allow Pentagon use for "any lawful purpose." Failure to comply by Friday risks cancellation of a $200 million contract and designation as a "supply chain risk," preventing other Pentagon contractors from using Anthropic's technology. This threatens the company's commercial growth and planned IPO. A Tuesday meeting between Hegseth and CEO Dario Amodei failed to resolve the dispute. The conflict reflects broader Trump administration hostility toward Anthropic, with AI czar David Sacks publicly criticizing the company as "woke AI" and accusing it of regulatory capture through fearmongering about AI risks.
#ai-regulation-and-military-use #pentagon-anthropic-conflict #autonomous-weapons-restrictions #trump-administration-ai-policy #corporate-compliance-crisis
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