Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today, as the Pentagon threatens the AI company with what could amount to a government blacklist.
At issue is the guardrails Anthropic placed on its AI models. The Pentagon, which has a $200 million contract with Anthropic, wants the company to lift its restrictions for the military to be able to use the model for “all lawful use,” according to a source familiar with the discussions.
But Anthropic has concerns over two issues that it isn’t willing to drop, the source said: AI-controlled weapons and mass domestic surveillance of American citizens. According to a source familiar, Anthropic believes AI is not reliable enough to operate weapons and no laws or regulations yet that cover how AI could be used in mass surveillance.
Though you can never tell for sure with CEOs, Dario Amodei has shown dangerous signs of being ethical, at least with not overselling LLM capabilities and with giving serious thought to downstream risks. On the input side, honoring copyright and not abusing fair use: maybe not so much.
Aaaaaaaaand it’s gone: https://lite.cnn.com/2026/02/25/tech/anthropic-safety-policy-change
Now they are just like any other AI corporation.