AI battle: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday that the artificial intelligence company “cannot in good conscience respond” to Pentagon demands for unrestricted use of its technology, escalating an unusual public standoff with Donald Trump’s administration that could cost the company its government contract as early as Friday.The company behind the chatbot Cloud said it remains open to negotiations, the Associated Press reported, but warned that the Defense Department’s revised contract language “made virtually no progress in preventing Cloud from being used for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons.”The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, responded to these 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 intervention.”
Anthropic’s internal policies prohibit such uses. The company is currently the only major developer of artificial intelligence — along with companies like Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s XAI — that has not agreed to supply its technology to a new internal US military network.“The ministry has the right to choose contractors that are most compatible with their vision,” Amodei said in a statement. “But given the great value that Anthropic technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they will reconsider it.”
The dispute escalated after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an ultimatum on Tuesday after 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 give the military broader authority over its products.Amodei criticized the threats as inconsistent, saying that “these last two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us as security risks; the other describes Claude as essential to national security.”Parnell emphasized that the Pentagon seeks to “use the Anthropic Model for all legitimate purposes,” without specifying what those uses would include. He said wider access to the technology was necessary to avoid “jeopardizing critical military operations.”“We will not allow any company to dictate the terms of how operational decisions are made,” he said.Negotiations between the two sides have been continuing for months. If the Pentagon does not review its position, Anthropic “will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider,” Amodei said.The public nature of the dispute has drawn criticism on Capitol Hill.Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the Pentagon handled the case unprofessionally and noted that Anthropic was “trying to do our best to help us on our own.”“Why the hell are we having this discussion in public?” Tillis told reporters. “This is not how you deal with a strategic vendor that has contracts.”“When a company resists a market opportunity for fear of negative consequences, you should listen to them and then find out behind closed doors what they are really trying to solve,” he added.Senator 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 senior US official.”
a company.”“Unfortunately, this is another indication that the Department of Defense seeks to completely ignore AI governance,” Warner said. It “further underscores the need for Congress to enact strong and binding mechanisms for governing artificial intelligence in national security contexts.”Pentagon officials stress that the AI systems will be used in accordance with the law, even as the department seeks to reshape its internal legal culture.Hegseth told Fox News last February that the military wanted lawyers who would provide constitutional advice but not pose “roadblocks.” That same month, he fired the top legal officials in the Army and Air Force without explanation. The Navy’s top lawyer resigned shortly after the 2024 election.
