Hegseth warns Anthropic not to let military use its AI technology as it sees fit: AP source

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic’s CEO a deadline Friday to release the company’s artificial intelligence technology for unrestricted military use or risk losing his government contract, according to a person familiar with Tuesday’s meeting.

Anthropic makes the chatbot Claude and remains the last of its colleagues not to supply its technology to a new internal network of the US military. CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly made clear his ethical concerns about the government’s uncontrolled use of AI, including the dangers of fully autonomous armed drones and AI-powered mass surveillance that could track dissent.

In addition to terminating the contract, Pentagon officials warned they could label Anthropic a supply chain risk or use the Defense Production Act to essentially give the military more authority to use its products even if it doesn’t authorize their use, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly at the meeting, speaking…