Pentagon threatens to make Anthropic a pariah if it refuses to drop AI guardrails
By Hadas Gold, CNN
(CNN) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a Pentagon contract.
He also threatened to put the AI company on what could amount to a government blacklist.
At issue is the guardrails Anthropic placed on its AI model Claude. The Pentagon, which has a $200 million contract with Anthropic, wants the company to lift its restrictions for the military to be able to use the model for “all lawful use,” according to a source familiar with the discussions.
But Anthropic has concerns over two issues that it isn’t willing to drop, the source said: AI-controlled weapons and mass domestic surveillance of American citizens. According to a source familiar, Anthropic believes AI is not reliable enough to operate weapons, and there are no laws or regulations yet that cover how AI could be used in mass surveillance.
A source familiar with the Tuesday meeting says the Pentagon said it would terminate Anthropic’s contract by Friday if the company does not agree to its terms. Pentagon officials also warned they would either use the Defense Production Act against Anthropic, or designate Anthropic a supply chain risk if the company didn’t comply with their demands.
The DPA is a law that gives the government the ability to influence businesses in the interest of national defense, recently invoked by the Trump administration during the COVID pandemic. The supply chain risk designation is usually reserved for companies seen as extensions of foreign adversaries like Russia or China. It could severely impact Anthropic’s business because enterprise customers with government contracts would have to make sure their government work doesn’t touch Anthropic’s tools.
During the meeting, the tone was cordial and respectful and there were no raised voices, the source said, adding that Hegseth praised Anthropic’s products and said they want to work with them.
But Amodei reiterated Anthropic’s redlines on the autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.
An Anthropic spokesperson described the meeting to CNN as a “good-faith” conversation about usage of the company’s technology.
“Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with Secretary Hegseth at the Pentagon this morning. During the conversation, Dario expressed appreciation for the Department’s work and thanked the Secretary for his service,” Anthropic said in a statement to CNN. “We continued good-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government’s national security mission in line with what our models can reliably and responsibly do.”
The negotiations have been ongoing for a couple months, the source said, but in recent weeks reports began surfacing about the tensions between the two sides.
Then last week, Axios reported Hegseth was close to cutting the Pentagon’s contract with Anthropic and designating the company a “supply chain risk.”
“Anthropic is committed to using frontier AI in support of US national security,” the Anthropic spokesperson said. “That’s why we were the first frontier AI company to put our models on classified networks and the first to provide customized models for national security customers.”
A Pentagon official confirmed to CNN the meeting with Anthropic was taking place, but did not comment further.
Anthropic has long positioned itself as the AI company most concerned with AI safety. Its founders were all former OpenAI employees who left the company over disagreements about the ChatGPT maker’s direction, approach to safety and pace of AI development. Anthropic also recently announced it is giving $20 million to a political group campaigning for more regulation of AI.
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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