Politico reports:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ultimatum to the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is sparking shock and confusion among lawyers and AI policymakers, who accuse the Pentagon of making contradictory threats as it pressures the company to lift restrictions on the use of its powerful AI model.

Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Tuesday to deliver a warning — give the military unfettered access to its Claude AI model by Friday evening or else have the government label it a “risk” to the supply chain. The designation, typically reserved for foreign firms with ties to U.S. adversaries, could ban companies that work with the government from partnering with Anthropic.

But Hegseth simultaneously threatened to invoke the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to work with the Defense Department and nix the company’s ethical red lines, which include restrictions on using Claude to surveil U.S. citizens or empower autonomous weapons. The government used the law during the Covid-19 pandemic to accelerate production of medical supplies and vaccines.

Dean Ball, a former AI adviser in the Trump administration, said the Pentagon is contradicting itself by forcing Anthropic to cooperate with the government even as it moves to label the company a security risk.

“You’re telling everyone else who supplies to the DOD you cannot use Anthropic’s models, while also saying that the DOD must use Anthropic’s models,” said Ball, who was the lead author of the White House’s AI Action Plan. He called it “incoherent” to even float the two policy ideas together, and “a whole different level of insane to move up and say we’re going to do both of those things.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Ball.

The high-stakes standoff has its roots in the January operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. military used Anthropic’s Claude AI model in the raid, The Wall Street Journal reported, prompting Anthropic to ask its corporate partner Palantir about the use of its product. Hegseth and other Pentagon officials bristled at those questions, eventually summoning Amodei to deliver this week’s ultimatum. [Continue reading…]

Axios reports:

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Thursday said there has been “virtually no progress” on negotiations with the Pentagon.

Why it matters: A deadline of Friday at 5:01pm is fast approaching for Anthropic to let the Pentagon use its model Claude as it sees fit or potentially face severe consequences.

What they’re saying: “The contract language we received overnight from the Department of War made virtually no progress on preventing Claude’s use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic said in a statement.

• “New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months.”
• Anthropic is not walking away from the table, even as significant gaps remain with less than 24 hours before the deadline. The company expects further negotiations.

[Continue reading…]