US Department of War recently put Claude-maker Anthropic in the list of companies with ‘supply chain risk to national security’, giving federal agencies six months to phase out use of its technology. The decision comes after the company refused to give the military unfettered access to its AI model. The ban restricts military contractors from doing business with Anthropic. Responding to the ban, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the Pentagon’s decision is “retaliatory and punitive”. In an exclusive first interview with CBS News after being labelled as a national security threat, Amodei said that by disagreeing with the government, the company has done the “most American thing”. During the interview, Dario Amodei was asked what he would say to President Trump post the ban. To this, Amodei replied: “I would say we are patriotic Americans. We have done everything … for the sake of this country, for the sake of supporting U.S. national security.” He further said: “We believe in defeating our autocratic adversaries. We believe in defending America. The red lines we have drawn, we drew, because we believe that crossing those red lines is contrary to American values. And we wanted to stand up for American values. And when we were threatened, with supply chain designation and defense production act, which are unprecedented intrusions into the private economy by the government.” “We exercised our classic First Amendment rights to speak up and disagree with the government. Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world. And we are patriots in everything we have done here. We have stood up for the values of this country,” he concluded.

Pentagon-Anthropic AI dispute

The dispute between Anthropic AI and Pentagon originates from the AI company refusing to lift its safeguard and let the military use it for “all lawful purposes.” Despite being the only AI model running in the military’s classified systems, the AI firm has consistently insisted on blocking Claude’s use for what it calls the mass surveillance of Americans or to develop weapons that fire without human involvement.For those unaware, Anthropic’s Claude was used during the operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, through Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir. A Wall Street Journal report recently said that Claude was used by the US military in a major strike on Iran.