From Anthropic to Iran: Who sets the limits for the use of AI in war and surveillance?

Anthropic, a leading AI company, recently refused to sign a Pentagon contract that would allow the US military “unrestricted access” to its technology for “all lawful purposes.” For the signing, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei demanded two clear exceptions: no mass surveillance of Americans and no fully autonomous weapons without human oversight.

The very next day, the USA and Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Iran.

This leaves many wondering: How different would a war with fully autonomous weapons look? How important an ethical decision was it when Amodei described fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance as AI “red lines” that his company would not cross? What do these red lines mean for other nations?

The decision cost Anthropic enormous costs. “US President Donald Trump has ordered all American agencies to stop using the Anthropic AI family of Advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) and conversational chatbots,” Claude said. Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense…