Washington (United States) (AFP) – President Donald Trump told the US government Friday to “immediately” stop using Anthropic’s technology after the AI startup rejected the Pentagon’s demand that it agree to unconditional military use of its Claude models. Anthropic vowed to sue over the “intimidation” and insists its technology should not be used for the mass surveillance of US citizens or deployed in fully autonomous weapons systems.
“No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons,” the company said in a statement Friday. The Pentagon counters that it operates within the law and contracted suppliers cannot set terms on how their products are employed.
“I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase-out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump added. The Pentagon had said Anthropic must agree to comply with its demand by 5:01 pm (22:01 GMT) Friday or face compulsion under the Defense Production Act. The Cold War-era law, last invoked during the Covid pandemic, grants the federal government sweeping powers to direct private industry toward national security priorities.
The Pentagon also threatened to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk—a label typically reserved for companies from adversary nations. But in response, Anthropic said it would seek to overturn the ban. “We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court,” the San Francisco-based AI startup said in a lengthy statement that outlined the dangers of the Pentagon’s demands.
“In a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values,” the company said.
– ‘Dangerous precedent’ –
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier he was directing the Pentagon to follow through on the latter threat, and that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
“Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” Hegseth wrote on X. Calling Hegseth “the least qualified Secretary of Defense in our nation’s history,” top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries praised Anthropic’s courage for pushing back “against this shocking invasion of privacy scheme.”
“Mass surveillance of American citizens is unacceptable,” Jeffries added in his statement late Friday. The conflict had earlier drawn a show of solidarity from others in the industry, with hundreds of employees from AI giants Google DeepMind and OpenAI urging their companies to rally behind Anthropic in an open letter titled “We Will Not Be Divided.”
“We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight,” the letter said.
“They’re trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in. That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand,” it added. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Thursday that he too was seeking an agreement with the Pentagon that would include red lines similar to Anthropic’s, and that he hoped to help broker a resolution.
“We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions,” he wrote in a memo to employees, according to US media. Anthropic’s statement echoed those sentiments, and added that the company remains “ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States.”
© 2024 AFP
