Anthropic said it “cannot in good conscience” accede to US Department of Defense demands to allow its AI model to be used for wider military purposes.
The Pentagon threatened to cancel Anthropic’s $200 million defense deals and potentially label it a “supply chain risk” if it did not change the terms of its contracts to permit its use in domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused the request, saying that using existing AIs for those purposes would undermine “fundamental liberties” and put “America’s warfighters and civilians at risk.” The AI-focused writer Scott Alexander said that Amodei “having a spine” and choosing “principles over profits” makes him “a precious resource that must be defended.”