The U.S. Department of Defense is reportedly pressuring leading artificial intelligence firms to grant the military unfettered access to their technologies for "all lawful purposes." However, AI developer Anthropic is reportedly resisting this demand, as detailed in a recent Axios report.
This broad directive is also reportedly being extended to other prominent AI developers, including OpenAI, Google, and xAI. An unnamed former Trump administration official informed Axios that one of these companies has already acquiesced to the demand, while the remaining two have allegedly demonstrated a degree of willingness to negotiate.
Anthropic, conversely, has emerged as the most steadfast in its opposition. In response to this defiance, the Pentagon is reportedly contemplating the termination of its substantial $200 million contract with the AI innovator.
Back in January, The Wall Street Journal highlighted significant discrepancies between Anthropic and Defense Department representatives regarding the permissible applications of its Claude AI models. The WSJ subsequently disclosed that Claude was, in fact, deployed in a U.S. military operation aimed at apprehending then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Anthropic did not provide an immediate response to TechCrunch's request for comment regarding these developments.
A spokesperson for Anthropic, speaking to Axios, clarified that the company has "not discussed the use of Claude for specific operations with the Department of War." Instead, their discussions are centered on "a specific set of Usage Policy questions — namely, our hard limits around fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance."
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