Anthropic is standing up to the Department of War (DoW) on what we might call ethics issues. This story has some interesting angles.
Originally Anthropic had a contract with the DoW to provide AI services across the government. They had two red lines:
- Their AIs couldn’t be used for fully autonomous lethal weapons.
- Their AIs couldn’t be used for mass surveillance of US citizens.
The government pushed back and eventually cancelled the contract. Then they designated Anthropic a Supply Chain Risk which could make it hard for any government agency to contract with them. So … they are suing now. Here are some interesting links on the story:
- Dario Amodei, founder and CEO of Anthropic, has this to say about Anthropic’s position.
- An Air Force general had this to say about the spat.
Both are short and worth reading.