(Credit: Samyukta Lakshmi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Anthropic says it won't loosen guardrails on its AI systems, despite pressure from the Pentagon.
In a blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company would not back down on two of its AI policies around mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
The Department of Defense has been pressuring Anthropic to adapt its AI systems to permit "any lawful use" of its Claude technologies by the US military. "These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request," Amodei says.
In his blog post, Amodei said, "I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries. However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do.”
Those cases include mass domestic surveillance of American citizens and the current use of fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic says it believes AI-driven mass surveillance remains legal, but it’s “because the law has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities of AI.”
He also explains that while Anthropic believes fully autonomous weapons, which make decisions and engage targets without any human input, may be helpful for future national defense, the tech is not yet reliable enough.
“We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk," Amodei said. "We have offered to work directly with the Department of War on R&D to improve the reliability of these systems, but they have not accepted this offer.”
According to government officials speaking with The Washington Post, Google, OpenAI, and xAI have all agreed to the Pentagon’s changes on unclassified networks. Each brand is working with the Pentagon on agreements around classified networks.
On X, Under Secretary of War Emil Michael called Amodei "a liar" with a "God-complex," adding, "He wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military and is ok putting our nation’s safety at risk.”
Other Trump administration officials also chimed in on social media, with Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell tweeting, "The Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement. This narrative is fake and being peddled by leftists in the media.
"Here's what we're asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic's model for all lawful purposes. This is a simple, common-sense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk," Parnell added. "We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions."
The Pentagon is giving Anthropic until 5:01 p.m. ET on Friday to decide, or "we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk," Parnell writes. That would mean any companies that do business with the US military could not work with Anthropic.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also reportedly exploring how the Pentagon could use the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic to allow unrestricted use of its systems.
Anthropic promises a smooth transition if the Pentagon chooses to offboard its technologies, saying it will work to avoid "any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions."
Naturally, Elon Musk also had to get his own two cents in, tweeting that "Anthropic hates Western Civilization." (Parnell re-tweeted that message.)
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.