The Pentagon’s discussions with Anthropic that led to their Supply Chain Risk (SCR) designation included applications for the President of the United States’ Golden Dome, battle scenarios against Chinese hypersonic missiles and drone swarms.
On the “All-In Podcast” Friday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of War Emil Michael told the hosts that the AI company’s response to these scenarios was, “We’ll grant you an exemption”; and this led to the requirement for “all lawful uses” of the technology.
“I need the terms of service to be rational for our mission… We started these negotiations. It took three months and I had to give them scenarios like this Chinese hypersonic missile example. They say, ‘OK, we’ll give you an exception on that.’ Well, how about this swarm of drones? “We’ll make an exception for that. And I was like, exceptions don’t work. I can’t predict in the next 20 years what we could use AI for,” he said.
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The All-In Podcast is hosted by Silicon Valley venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, David Sacks and Jason Calacanis. Sacks, was not present for this particular podcast.
The Pentagon and Anthropic have clashed over ethics
Michael said the codes of ethics of Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei are not aligned with the needs of the government. In particular, Donald Trump’s ambitious Golden Dome program proposes to put American weapons in space.
He added that Palantir had raised the alarm that if the Anthropic software built a guardrail during the exercise, it would put people at risk. “I need a reliable and stable partner who will give me something, who will work with me on autonomy, because one day it will be real and we are starting to see earlier versions of it. I need someone who will not pull out in the middle,” he said.
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Michael also accused Amodei of having a “God complex” and wanting to “personally control” the US military.
“It’s our province to decide how we’re going to fight and win wars if they’re legal. And I think it turned into a PR game for them at some point because they’re not going to win this intellectual battle… and it became like ‘let’s find the most pressing problems, robotic weapons and mass surveillance.’ Michael said.
“Not punitive action”, Trump justifies the SCR designation
When asked, Michael said he did not consider the SCR designation a punitive measure.
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“I don’t see it as oppressive. If their model has this political bias, let’s call it, based on their constitution, their culture, their people and so on. I don’t want Lockheed Martin using their model to design weapons for me…Boeing wants to use Anthropic to build commercial jets because they can. Boeing wants to use it to build fighter jets because I can trust them. So committed to their own political preferences,” he said.
Anthropic to fight the SCR label in court
In a blog post on Thursday, Amodei confirmed that the company had received a letter from the DoW the day before about the SCR designation, adding that Anthropic would take legal action against the move.
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“Yesterday (March 4), Anthropic received a letter from the Department of War confirming that we have been designated a supply chain risk to US national security. We do not believe this action is legally correct and see no other option but to challenge it in court,” Amodei said.
He added that the statute used (10 USC 3252) is “narrow” and exists to “protect the government rather than punish contractors.”
