U.S. military leaders pressure Anthropic to bend Claude’s protective measures

U.S. military leaders, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, met Tuesday with executives at artificial intelligence company Anthropic to negotiate a dispute over what the government can do with the company’s powerful AI model. Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until the end of the day Friday to agree to the department’s terms or face penalties, Axios reported.

Anthropic, which presents itself as the most security-conscious of the leading AI companies, has been locked in a disagreement with the Pentagon for weeks over how the military can use its large Claude language model. U.S. defense officials have pushed for full access to Claude’s capabilities, while Anthropic has reportedly resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapon systems that can use AI to kill people without human intervention. The Department of Defense (DoD) has integrated Claude into its operations but is threatening to separate…