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- Anthropic is negotiating with the Defense Department over the terms of use for its frontier model.
- CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement that it will not budge on 2 red lines.
- The Defense Department is prepared to use levers that could force Anthropic to cooperate.
Anthropic’s CEO is prepared to walk away from its contract with the military, according to a new statement published on Thursday.
In a blog post, CEO Dario Amodei said that the company “cannot in good conscience accede” to the request of the Defense Department concerning safeguards around its frontier model, Claude.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum to agree with the military’s terms over the use of Claude or get blacklisted by the government.
Defense officials gave Anthropic until Friday evening to agree to the terms.
The terms were not clarified, but the issue, according to Amodei’s statement, appears to revolve around two red lines Anthropic is not willing to cross when it comes to how Claude is deployed: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
A spokesperson for Anthropic declined to comment.
Hours before Amodei put out a statement, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson, posted on X that the department had no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of US citizens or to develop autonomous weapons.
A person familiar with the negotiations told Business Insider the department provided a new proposal just 36 hours before Hegseth’s deadline, and the language around the provisions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons allowed for “any lawful use” of Anthropic’s AI.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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