<
https://www.computerworld.com/article/4138860/anthropic-to-department-of-defense-drop-dead.html>
"In recent weeks, AI giant Anthropic has been locked in a high‑stakes
confrontation with the Trump administration’s Department of Defense (DoD) over
new standard terms the Pentagon wants to impose on AI vendors. Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth had demanded contract language that would give the
military “any lawful use” of Anthropic’s models, effectively stripping out the
company’s long‑standing limits on certain battlefield and domestic
applications.
Lawful, in Hegseth’s mind, means the DoD could do practically whatever it
wanted, up to and including domestic mass surveillance and AI-controlled
weapons.
If that sounds like the premise for how a war between Terminators and humans
might begin, you’re not the only one to think so. Caution, however, is not a
word Hegseth seems to know. But Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, however, is well
aware of the real-world risks of AI — and not just the ones torn from
science-fiction horror movies.
Be that as it may, Hegseth summoned Amodei and demanded that Anthropic AI be
used any way he wants or said he’d cancel the company’s existing $200 million
contract and blacklist them from any further AI pacts. Hegseth gave Anthropic
until 5 p.m. yesterday to bend the knee.
Amodel didn’t bend.
He publicly stated the company would rather walk away from work with the DoD
than drop contractual safeguards meant to keep its AI from being used for mass
surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous weapons.
It’s not that he objects to using AI to defend the US. Amodei favors that. But,
“using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with
democratic values,” he said. “AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious,
novel risks to our fundamental liberties.”
In addition, “frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully
autonomous weapons. We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s
warfighters and civilians at risk. We have offered to work directly with the
Department of [Defense] on R&D to improve the reliability of these systems, but
they have not accepted this offer.”
Oh, and by the way, Amodei said those use cases “have never been included in
our contracts with the Department of [Defense], and we believe they should not
be included now.”
The Pentagon kept the pressure on, describing the strong-arm tactics as “my way
or the highway” and told Anthropic to pitch their “final offer” yesterday,
Still, Anthropic rejected the DoD proposal, saying it “cannot, in good
conscience,” agree to these overbroad terms."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
