Anthropic PBC rejected the Pentagon's latest offer to defuse a standoff over conditions the company has sought governing the use of its artificial intelligence software by the military, a confrontation that has jeopardized its defense work for the government.
In a statement Thursday, an Anthropic spokesperson said that new language proposed by the Pentagon as a compromise failed to satisfy the firm's desire to preserve key safeguards that it has sought for any military use of its AI tools. Those have included company prohibitions on mass surveillance of Americans and on use of its technology in fully autonomous weapons.
The Pentagon has rejected those demands and given the company until Friday to accept the government's terms or be declared a supply-chain risk — a move that would potentially bar it from work with other defense contractors. US officials have said that the military wants to be able to use the company's AI tools in a lawful fashion but without any limits by Anthropic.
“These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei said in a statement Thursday.
Defense officials have pushed back and demanded the ability to use Claude, one of the only AI tools cleared for classified cloud work, without any restrictions from the company. The Defense Department has also threatened to use the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to use Anthropic's software anyway, over the company's objections.
The Pentagon has no interest in mass surveillance or developing “autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement,” spokesman Sean Parnell said earlier Thursday.
“We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions,” Parnell wrote in a post on X. “They have until 5:01 PM ET on Friday to decide. Otherwise, we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk.”
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