GoKawiilYou can chart a year through product launches, or you can measure it in the greater moments that change the way we look at AI. The AI industry is constantly churning out news, like major acquisitions, indie developer successes, public outcry against sketchy products, and existentially dangerous contract negotiations — it’s a lot to untangle, so we’re taking a glimpse at where we’re at and where we’ve been so far this year.
Anthropic vs. the Pentagon
Once business partners, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reached a bitter stalemate as they renegotiated the contracts that dictate how the U.S. military can use Anthropic’s AI tools in February.
Anthropic established a hard line against its AI being used for mass surveillance of Americans or to power autonomous weapons that can attack without human oversight. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has argued that the Department of Defense — which President Donald Trump’s administration calls the Department of War — should be permitted access to Anthropic’s models for any “lawful use.” Government representatives took offense to the idea that the military should be limited to the rules of a private company, but Amodei stood his ground.
“Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner,” Amodei wrote in a statement addressing the situation. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”
The Pentagon gave Anthropic a deadline to agree to their contract. Hundreds of employees at Google and OpenAI signed an open letter urging their respective leaders to respect Amodei’s limits and refuse to budge on issues of autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance.
The deadline passed without Anthropic agreeing to the Pentagon’s demands. Trump directed federal agencies to phase out their use of Anthropic tools over a six-month transition period and called the AI company, which is valued at $380 billion, a “radical left, woke company” in an all-caps social media post. The Pentagon then moved to declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a designation that is usually reserved for foreign adversaries and prevents any company that works with Anthropic from doing business with the U.S. military. (Anthropic has since sued to challenge the designation.)
Anthropic rival OpenAI then swooped in and announced that it had reached an agreement allowing its own models to be deployed in classified situations. It was a shock to the tech community, since reports had indicated that OpenAI would stick to Anthropic’s red lines governing use of AI for the military.
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