The Pentagon is pushing artificial intelligence companies to allow the U.S. military to use their technology for all lawful purposes. According to a new report, Anthropic is resisting this demand. The government is reportedly making the same request to OpenAI, Google, and xAI.
An anonymous former Trump administration official stated that one of those companies has agreed to the terms, while the other two have shown some flexibility. Anthropic, however, has been the most resistant. In response, the Pentagon is apparently threatening to cancel its existing $200 million contract with the AI company.
Earlier this year, a separate report indicated there was significant disagreement between Anthropic and Defense Department officials over how its Claude models could be used. That report subsequently stated that Claude was used in a U.S. military operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. A company spokesperson told reporters that the company has not discussed the use of Claude for specific operations with the Department of Defense. Instead, the spokesperson said the company is focused on a specific set of usage policy questions, namely its hard limits around fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.