Anthropic CEO Slams Pentagon Decision As ‘Unprecedented’

The CEO of AI company Anthropic, Dario Amodei, has responded to the United States Department of Defense and the White House, ordering military defense contractors that do business with the Department of Defense to stop using Anthropic’s products.

Anthropic objected to the use of its AI models for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons that can fire without any human input, Amodei told CBS News on Saturday. 

He added that Anthropic was fine with all of the US government’s proposed use cases for its AI models, except for surveillance and fully autonomous weapons platforms. He said:

“These are things that are fundamental to Americans: the right, not to be spied on by the government, the right for our military officers to make decisions about war, themselves, and not turn it over completely to a machine.” 

The decision by the Defense Department to label Anthropic as a “supply chain risk,” meaning that military contractors cannot use Anthropic’s products on defense contracting work, is “unprecedented” and “punitive,” he added.

Amodei later clarified that he is not against the development of fully automated weapons if foreign militaries begin using them in the future, but that AI is not yet reliable enough to function autonomously in a military setting.

The law has not caught up to the rapidly developing AI sector, Amodei said, calling on the United States Congress to pass “guardrails” to prevent the use of AI in domestic mass surveillance programs.

Related: Anthropic says it’s been targeted in massive distillation attacks

OpenAI wins a defense contract after US officials label Anthropic a supply chain risk

On Friday, US “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced that Anthropic is a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security.”

“Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” he said. 

Hours later, rival AI company OpenAI accepted a contract with the US Defense Department to deploy its AI models across military networks. 

The announcement of the deal from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman drew online backlash from critics, who cited AI being used for mass domestic surveillance and undermining individual privacy as a red line.  

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