The Pentagon is pressuring major artificial intelligence developers to allow their technology to be used by the U.S. military for “all lawful purposes.” This demand goes to Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and xAI. An anonymous Trump administration official reported that one of those companies agreed to the terms, while the other two showed flexibility. Anthrop remains the company most resistant to such negotiations, with the Pentagon threatening to terminate its $200 million contract.
Friction between AI companies and government officials is not new. In January, the Wall Street Journal documented significant disagreement over the acceptability of Anthropic’s Claude model in a defense context. The report further noted that the technology was used during the U.S. military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. When contacted by TechCrunch, Anthropic did not immediately respond to inquiries regarding the contract dispute.
Regarding the nature of the conflict, an Anthropic spokesperson told Axios that the company “has not discussed the use of the Claude for specific operations with the Department of the Army.” The spokesperson clarified that current discussions are focused on “a series of specific issues regarding usage policy, namely severe restrictions on fully autonomous weapons and large-scale domestic surveillance.” The statement distinguishes between the company’s policy concerns and the Department of Defense’s demands for broader access to its models.
Featured image credit
