Anthropic Challenges US War Dept Over AI Supply Chain Risk Designation

"Anthropic received a letter from the Department of War confirming that we have been designated as a supply chain risk to America's national security. As we wrote on Friday, we do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court. The Department's letter has a narrow scope, and this is because the relevant statute (10 USC 3252) is narrow, too. It exists to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier; in fact, the law requires the Secretary of War to use the least restrictive means necessary to accomplish the goal of protecting the supply chain. Even for Department of War contractors, the supply chain risk designation doesn't (and can't) limit uses of Claude or business relationships with Anthropic if those are unrelated to their specific Department of War contracts," Amodei said in his press statement.

Amodei stated that his concerns remain on domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, but claimed to have had productive conversations with the Department of War recently.

"I would like to reiterate that we had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways we could serve the Department that adhere to our two narrow exceptions, and ways for us to ensure a smooth transition if that is not possible. As we wrote on Thursday, we are very proud of the work we have done together with the Department, supporting frontline war fighters with applications such as intelligence analysis, modelling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more. As we stated last Friday, we do not believe, and have never believed, that it is the role of Anthropic or any private company to be involved in operational decision-making--that is the role of the military. Our only concerns have been our exceptions on fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance, which relate to high-level usage areas, and not operational decision-making," he wrote.

Amodei said that his priority is to ensure that the national security apparatus is not deprived of AI tools from Anthropic in the middle of the West Asia operations.

"Our most important priority right now is making sure that our war fighters and national security experts are not deprived of important tools in the middle of major combat operations. Anthropic will provide our models to the Department of War and national security community, at nominal cost and with continuing support from our engineers, for as long as is necessary to make that transition, and for as long as we are permitted to do so. Anthropic has much more in common with the Department of War than we have differences. We both are committed to advancing US national security and defending the American people, and agree on the urgency of applying AI across the government. All our future decisions will flow from that shared premise," he said.

Meanwhile, Anthropic's tools continue to be used during the US' ongoing operation in the Middle East. A Reuters report suggested that the US used an array of weapons in the strikes conducted against Iran as a part of Operation Epic Fury, which included artificial intelligence services from Anthropic. According to the report the Pentagon used artificial intelligence services from Anthropic, including its Claude tools, during its attack on Iran.

- ANI