The Pentagon is demanding access to artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, threatening to compel compliance under the Defence Production Act if the company doesn’t agree. The move comes amid concerns over the potential use of AI for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems.
Pentagon Demands Access to Anthropic AI
Anthropic was given until 5:01 p.m. Friday to comply with the Pentagon’s demand, or face compulsion under the Cold War-era Defence Production Act. The law grants the federal government broad powers to direct private industry toward national security priorities, and was last invoked during the Covid pandemic.
The Pentagon also threatened to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk, a label typically reserved for companies from adversary nations.
U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Pentagon to follow through with the latter threat, stating that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
Hegseth criticized Anthropic’s response, writing on X that the company “delivered a masterclass in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.”
The conflict has drawn support for Anthropic from other companies in the AI industry. Hundreds of employees from Google DeepMind and OpenAI urged their companies to rally behind Anthropic in an open letter titled “We Will Not Be Divided.”
The letter expressed concerns that “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.”
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman told employees he 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. He stated, according to U.S. media, that “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.”
The Centre for Democracy and Technology (CDT) sharply criticised the move, with CDT chief Alexandra Givens stating that the President is “wielding the full weight of the federal government to blacklist a company for taking a narrowly-tailored, principled stance to restrict some of the most extreme uses of AI you could imagine.”
Givens added that “This action sets a dangerous precedent. It chills private companies’ ability to engage frankly with the Government about appropriate uses of their technology.”
Anthropic did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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