The Department of War today designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk following a dispute over restrictions the company placed on how the military could use its AI model. The unprecedented move threatens not only to ban Anthropic from work with the Pentagon, but also from doing business with any company that partners or contracts with the Department of War. The move by the Pentagon follows the break-down of a contract negotiation with Anthropic in which the AI lab objected to the use of its AI models for domestic surveillance and for autonomous weapons with no human oversight.
“The Pentagon’s decision to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk sets a dangerous precedent for how the government treats American technology innovators,” said Morgan Plummer, Vice President of Policy at Americans for Responsible Innovation. “These authorities were designed to keep foreign adversaries out of our supply chains, not to punish American companies for building safeguards into their technology. Using this tool against a domestic AI firm sends a troubling signal that could chill innovation and weaken the very technology ecosystem the United States needs to stay competitive.”
Earlier today, a bipartisan group of former defense and intelligence officials, including ARI President Brad Carson and Morgan Plummer, sent a letter to Congress calling for an investigation into the supply-chain risk designation. The group warned that labeling a leading American AI company as a supply-chain risk is “a category error with consequences that extend far beyond this dispute.”
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Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy advocacy in the public interest, focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). Learn more at ARI.us.
