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Title: US Threatens Anthropic with 'Supply-Chain Risk' Designation. OpenAI
Signs New War Department Deal

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/28/2028...

It started Friday when all U.S. federal agencies were ordered to "immediately
cease" using Anthropic's AI technology after contract negotiations stalled
when Anthropic requested prohibitions against mass domestic surveillance or
fully autonomous weapons. But later Friday there were even more
repercussions... In a post to his 1.1 million followers on X.com, U.S.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth criticized Anthropic for what he called "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." Our
position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must
have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic's models for every LAWFUL purpose
in defense of the Republic... Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of
"effective altruism," [Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei] have attempted to
strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act of
corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American
lives. The Terms of Service of Anthropic's defective altruism will never
outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the
battlefield. Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over
the operational decisions of the United States military. That is
unacceptable... In conjunction with the President's directive for the Federal
Government to cease all use of Anthropic's technology, I am directing the
Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National
Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that
does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial
activity with Anthropic... America's warfighters will never be held hostage
by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final. Meanwhile,
Anthrophic said on Friday that "no amount of intimidation or punishment from
the Department of War will change our position." (And "We will challenge any
supply chain risk designation in court." Designating Anthropic as a supply
chain risk would be an unprecedented action - one historically reserved for
US adversaries, never before publicly applied to an American company. We are
deeply saddened by these developments. As the first frontier AI company to
deploy models in the US government's classified networks, Anthropic has
supported American warfighters since June 2024 and has every intention of
continuing to do so. We believe this designation would both be legally
unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that
negotiates with the government... Secretary Hegseth has implied this
designation would restrict anyone who does business with the military from
doing business with Anthropic. The Secretary does not have the statutory
authority to back up this statement. Anthropic also defended the two
exceptions they'd requested that had stalled contract negotiations. "[W]e do
not believe that today's frontier AI models are reliable enough to be used in
fully autonomous weapons. Allowing current models to be used in this way
would endanger America's warfighters and civilians. Second, we believe that
mass domestic surveillance of Americans constitutes a violation of
fundamental rights." Also Friday, OpenAI announced that "we reached an
agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified
network." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized that the agreement retains and
confirms OpenAI's own prohibitions against using their products for domestic
mass surveillance - and requires "human responsibility" for the use of force
including for autonomous weapon systems. "The Department of War agrees with
these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our
agreement. We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models
behave as they should, which the Department of War also wanted. " We are
asking the Department of War to offer these same terms to all AI companies,
which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have
expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and
governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements. We remain committed
to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy,
and sometimes dangerous place.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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