While Anthropic goes on the US blacklist, the Pentagon already has someone to succeed him: OpenAI

The pentagon gave an ultimatum to Anthropic to accept the unlimited use of its AI models for applications of all kinds, including espionage and military use. The deadline arrived, at 5:01 p.m. this Friday, February 27, and Anthropic said no: he would be faithful to his principles. The sword of Damocles has fallen on the company led by Dario Amodei and the United States has completed its threats.

How did he communicate? A few hours ago, United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, for the Pentagon, Anthropic is already a “risk to the supply chain.”

The context. This chronicle of a death foretold has been meeting its deadlines and everyone has remained in their initial position:

• Anthropic rejected the Pentagon’s lawsuit over concerns about the use of AI for mass civilian surveillance and the development of weapons capable of firing without human intervention. The company behind Claude has already announced that he will contest. We will have to see the cost of maintaining his position.
• The United States will apply a sanction that until now we had only seen applied to companies from rival countries, Huawei is one of the clearest examples.

What’s going to happen now. Leaving aside the fact that the president of the United States refers to Anthropic as “a radical left-wing and woke company” on your social network Truth Socialthe US Ministry of Defense has carried out its threat, which has come into effect immediately:

• It will terminate its contract with Anthropic, valued at up to $200 million, and as announced Peter Hegseth, no contractor, supplier or partner doing business with the United States Armed Forces may do business with Anthropic.
• There will be a six-month period for the Pentagon and other government agencies to transition Claude to alternatives.

OpenAI said yes. The United States already has a company to provide its services to the Pentagon and other agencies: OpenAI. Sam Altman announced the agreement to deploy its models on its classified network explaining that the Department of Defense had shown a “deep respect for security” and that both AI security and broad benefit sharing are the foundation of its mission.

Among the security principles specifically mentioned by Altman are the prohibition of domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including autonomous weapons systems. According to the CEO of OpenAI, the War Department is aligned with these principles. Likewise, he explained that they will apply technical safeguards to guarantee the correct behavior of their models.

Claude’s shadow is long. Saying goodbye overnight to your reference AI company (even with that transition period) and putting a veto on other companies working with it is a tricky measure to put into practice as it is behind recent strategic operations, such as Maduro’s arrest and others imminent. Likewise, it leaves projects such as that of Palantirwhich Claude uses.

behind the scenes. According to AxiosDeputy Secretary of Defense Emil Michael was in talks with Anthropic to offer a deal just as Pete Hegseth dropped the bomb on X/Twitter. This theoretical agreement would have allowed the collection or analysis of data on US citizens, such as location, web browsing or financial information. At the moment it is unknown if this interest of the Pentagon in collecting personal data legally applies to OpenAI.

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Cover | Tomasz Zielonka