I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

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I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

jacobedawson

Comments (995)

_fat_santa
The disconnect here for me is, I assume the DoW and Anthropic signed a contract at some point and that contract most likely stipulated that these are the things they can do and these are the things they can't do.I would assume the original terms the DoW is now railing against were in those original contracts that they signed. In that case it looks like the DoW is acting in bad faith here, they signed the original contact and agreed to those terms, then they went back and said no, you need to remove those safeguards to which Anthropic is (rightly so) saying no.Am I missing something here?EDIT: Re-reading Dario's post[1] from this morning I'm not missing anything. Those use cases were never part of the original contacts:> Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of WarSo yeah this seems pretty cut and dry. Dow signed a contract with Anthropic and agreed to those terms. Then they decided to go back and renege on those original terms to which Anthropic said no. Then they promptly threw a temper tantrum on social media and designated them as a supply chain risk as retaliation.My final opinion on this is Dario and Anthropic is in the right and the DoW is acting in bad faith by trying to alter the terms of their original contracts. And this doesn't even take into consideration the moral and ethical implications.[1]: https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war
pinkmuffinere
Wow, and the only restrictions Anthropic asked for are (1) no mass domestic surveillance and (2) require human-in-the-loop for killing [1]. Those seem exceptionally reasonable, and even rather weak, lol :|[1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war
techblueberry
So they are such a risk to national security that no contractor that works with the federal government may use them, but they're going to keep using them for six more months? So I guess our national security is significantly at risk for the next six months?
lukewrites
I admire Anthropic for sticking to their principles, even if it affects the bottom line. That’s the kind of company you want to work for.
labrador
Good. I'd rather not have my favorite AI from a company working on AGI to have murder and spying in it's DNA.In fact, as a patriotic American veteran, I'd be ok with Anthropic moving to Europe. It might be better for Claude and AGI, which are overriding issues for me.Rutger Bregman @rcbregmanThis is a huge opportunity for Europe. Welcome Anthropic with open arms. Roll out the red carpet. Visa for all employees.Europe already controls the AI hardware bottleneck through ASML. Add the world's leading AI safety lab and you have the foundations of an AI superpower.https://x.com/rcbregman/status/2027335479582925287
Someone1234
Topics like this are where I struggle with HN philosophy. Normally avoiding politics and ideology where possible, created higher quality and more interesting discussions.But how do you even begin to discuss that Tweet or this topic without talking about ideology and to contextualize this with other seemingly unrelated things currently going on in the US?I genuinely don't think I'm conversationally agile enough to both discuss this topic while still able to avoid the political/ideological rabbit-hole.
0xbadcafebee
McCarthyism began in 1947, with Truman demanding goverment employees be "screened for loyalty". They wanted to remove anyone who was a member of an "organization" they didn't like. It began with hearings, and then blacklists, and then arrests and prison sentences. It lasted until 1959. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)This is the new McCarthyism. Do what the administration says, or you will be blacklisted, or worse.
nickysielicki
This could kill Anthropic.The designation says any contractor, supplier, or partner doing business with the US military can’t conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Well, AWS has JWCC. Microsoft has Azure Government. Google has DoD contracts. If that language is enforced broadly, then Claude gets kicked off Bedrock, Vertex, and potentially Azure… which is where all the enterprise revenue lives. Claude cannot survive on $200/mo individual powerusers. The math just doesn’t math.
rushcar
"Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic."This is authoritarian behavior. You're having trouble negotiating a contract, so instead of just canceling it - you basically ban all of F500 from doing business with that firm.
easton
> Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.I’m sure the lawyers just got paged, but does this mean the hyperscalers (AWS, GCP) can’t resell Claude anymore to US companies that aren’t doing business with the DoD? That’s rough.
NickAndresen
"They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security." from Dario's statement (https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war)
eckelhesten
Hard decision by Anthropic, but at least they can sleep well at night knowing their products doesn’t kill human beings around the world.
kilroy123
Strange times. I truly feel these are the last days of our Republic. Especially if more aren't willing to take a stand.
readitalready
I’m just laughing at the possibility of it he US military being forced to use Chinese open source AI models because every US model provider refuses to work with them.
cmiles8
As written this would be the end of Anthropic. AWS, Microsoft et al are all suppliers of the DoW and as written they must immediate stop doing business with Anthropic. Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
hoppoli
American people: latinamerican here. Maybe it's silly to root for a country in the world hegemony arena. I've usually been partial to the USA over China. Now I'm not rooting for your country anymore. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have China being the foremost power, at least they seem to be less keen on invading or heavily strong-arming latinamerica
general1465
Ukrainians and Russians are experimenting with FPV drones using AI for target acquisition and homing. Not yet economically viable because it is cheaper to give your FPV fiber spool instead of Nvidia Jetson to bypass jamming.When we have first politician blown to bits by autonomous AI FPV there will be sheer panic of every politician in the world to put the genie back into the bottle. It will be too late at that point.Anthropic is correct with its no killbot rule.
agmater
https://xcancel.com/i/status/2027507717469049070
getpokedagain
Why does everyone associated with this administration sound like a 17 year old who got dumped when they post on twitter.
txrx0000
This is why you can't gatekeep AI capabilities. It will eventually be taken from you by force.Open-source everything. Papers, code, weights, financial records. Do all of your research in the open. Run a 100% transparent organization so that there's nothing to take from you. Level the playing field for good and bad actors alike, otherwise the bad actors will get their hands on it while everyone else is left behind.Stop comparing AI capabilities to nuclear weapons. A nuke cannot protect against or reverse the damage of another nuke. AI capabilities are not like nukes. Diffuse it as much as possible. Give it to everyone and the good will prevail.Build a world where millions of AGIs run on millions of gaming PCs, aligned with millions of different individuals. It is a necessary condition for humanity's survival.
avaer
Remember to vote in this year's midterms (Nov 3) if you're eligible. I don't think it's off-topic.
cube00
Sam Altman says OpenAI shares Anthropic's red lines in Pentagon fight [1]So OpenAI will also be marked as a supply chain risk too, right?[1]: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/altman-openai-anthropic-pen...
linuxhansl
Hats off to Anthropic for not wavering here.Supply-chain risks means "the potential for adversaries to sabotage, subvert, or disrupt the integrity and delivery of defense systems, including software, hardware, and services, to degrade national security".So now Anthropic is an adversary, because it does not want "fully autonomous weapons" or automated mass surveillance? Sure thing, DoD. Go use Grok or whatever, I'm sure that will go great.
dang
Recent and related:Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121 - Feb 2026 (1508 comments)
leapis
Decades of speculative science fiction, thought experiments, and discourse led to this. It’s gratifying to see that we’ve garnered enough concern, a major AI lab risking this to reign in the potential of runaway AI disasters. Hopefully we see other labs follow.
phs318u
The discussion here underlines the reality that one can never make a “deal” with a powerful state, just as Lando Calrisian famously found out in Empire Strikes Back.Dario is Lando, complaining “We had a deal!” Only to be told, “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
bnycum
It's nice to see Anthropic sticking to their terms. I just have one question in all this. Why is Anthropic being singled out when it seems all the other big players are down to play with the DoD? Is this just a pissing match, or have the Anthropic models been proven the real winner for them?
cannabis_sam
A drunkard, ex-fox news host, wants mass surveillance and automated killing, what could go wrong?I wish I thought enough Americans had the spine required to stand up to this, and I know for a fact that a lot do... the solution is literally written into your constitution.
garbawarb
This sounds like a message to would-be founders: don't base your company in the US. The strongest markets to do business are the ones with the most freedom from government meddling. In the US, big government is happy to use its power to crush private enterprise that it doesn't like.
cpeterso
Good PR for Anthropic: the DoD already has contracts with OpenAI and xAI, but is still so eager to use Claude that they must threaten Anthropic.
liuliu
It may not be obvious. But this is actually a good thing when we looking back in a few years. I always feel weird that executive branch can just destroy private enterprise with "Supply-chain Risk" / "Terrorist List" without Due Process.
qgin
So they're essentially admitting they want to use Claude to mass surveil Americans and/or build autonomous weapons with no humans in the loop. Kind of nuts.
kylecazar
There is clearly a need to codify into all of these historical acts that they can't be invoked unless there is a declaration of war (or some other appropriate prerequisite).This administration consistently exploits what were designed to be emergency powers because no such requirement exists. Leave no room for interpretation.
johnhamlin
Labeling a company that refused to comply with nakedly authoritarian orders is a true New Speak moment
pugworthy
I imagine I'm not the only one to switch over to giving Claude my money today. I'm sure the "Other" comments for the cancellation were often as blunt as mine.Q: "Is there anything we could do to change your mind?"A: "Yes! Stand up to the current administration."
WesleyJohnson
What player is going to step in and do what Anthropic wouldn't? Or, worse, will the DoW try to author its own AI to go where private AI won't?
Avicebron
How many layers deep does this go? Does Microsoft using Claude to develop their Word products mean the US government has to switch to linux?
seanieb
> "Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic."Does this mean Azure & AWS will have to stop offering Claude as a model?
pm90
Does Anthropic have standing to sue to Government for libel? I don’t think the Government is allowed to arbitrarily designate a company a supply chain risk without good cause.
dataflow
Given that Anthropic is clearly risking their entire business just to stand up for what they believe is right, which appears to be what everyone here agrees with, is everyone who is supporting them here planning to also start using Anthropic and switch away from other vendors until they follow suit? Or are folks planning to just use whatever regardless?Edit: I should perhaps clarify I'm more interested in paid users, rather than free. It's harder to tell if free users switching would help them or hurt them... curious if anyone has thoughts on that too.
Keyframe
Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles.Come to EU guys, we'll prepare a warm welcome!
pinkmuffinere
It's fascinating to me that this decision was set for 5 pm ET on a friday, and I think it may be more responsible to set big deadlines like this for a time while the stock market is open. I imagine this will negatively impact confidence in the US economy at large, and stock markets will reflect that. But since the market is closed, we'll have to wait till Monday, with the tension/anticipation of a drop building. If the deadline had been set for say, midday thursday, the market would have responded immediately, but at least you wouldn't have the building anxiety over the weekend. Of course the result wasn't known ahead of time, and I imagine some people will argue that the weekend will give investors time to cool off instead of following their gut reaction. But personally I don't find those arguments very convincing.
daxfohl
Probably used Claude to write the tweet.
drumhead
Under normal circumstances this would end up in court, but when this administration ignores court orders it doesnt like Anthropic would effectively have no legal recourse.
joshuaheard
Should military contractors put conditions on the use of their weapons? Here's our tank, but you can't invade Iran with it? We think your invasion of Venezuela is illegal, we're activating the kill switch on your jets. That's a real dangerous proposition.
DavidPiper
> Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.Kesha tried to hug Jerry Seinfeld vibes.> Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.Strange way of saying "this vendor doesn't meet our software requirements".> they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submissionErr... You approached them?> a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.It's an orthogonal point, but "Silicon Valley ideology" has made up a significant portion of the USA's GDP for the last however many years.> Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable.Again... You approached them?> I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security.Like most companies in the world I imagine. They just haven't been approached yet.> to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.Internally re-framing all the recent "EU moving away from American tech!" articles as "EU builds more patriotic services!"> This decision is final.Nothing says "final" like a Tweet. The most uncontroversial and binding mechanism of all communication.
vvpan
"Department of War" - I suppose one could give them credit for being honest but what bastards...
owenthejumper
I got downvoted for this in the other thread, but this is basically an attempt at bankrupting Anthropic. No US company has ever been designated a supply chain risk, and the foreign companies that are on that list are now doing 0 business in the US. Very large portion of the US economy relies on some contracts with the US government, Anthropic cannot survive this if this holds.I don't think it will hold, in the end this is mafia behavior, but if it does, we are yet again in uncharted waters.
hedora
This is good news all around, especially with OpenAI's statement siding with Anthropic.Anthropic folks: I've been a bit salty on HN about bugs in Claude Code, but I feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about sending you my cash this month.
trelane
https://x.com/PalmerLuckey/status/2027500334999081294It is an interesting point. What's the difference between this use license and others?
A_D_E_P_T
Oh well, I guess I've got no choice but to sign my business up for Pro plans with Kimi K2.5. lol.
nicole_express
In theory, this is why there should be competition in industry, because it removes the capability of a single large actor to be able to control the government's access to things.Oddly, though, it seems like that should solve this problem as well. I'm not sure why the Department of Defense insists on Anthropic's models in particular; one would think one of the other players, at the very least least xAI, would be willing to step in and provide the capability Anthropic doesn't want to provide.
israrkhan
I already loved Claude models, and this makes me even more eager to use them.
looneysquash
Last I heard, it's still legally called the Department of Defense.But anyway, I guess the question is, will any other big AI companies stand with them? It's what needs to happen, but I am not hopeful.
owenthejumper
This is the most unhinged thing yet, after all the previous unhinged things.
iugtmkbdfil834
The whole thing is fascinating. In my heart of heart, in principle, I want models to be essentially unrestricted, but I still find it somewhat problematic that government thinks it can say: you will make adjust your product to match our exact expectations even if you don't sign an updated contract with us. Odd stuff. I know they are trotting out War powers, but.. well.. we are not at war ( at least not yet or at least not yet officially declared.. ).
tangotaylor
Insanely stupid and petty decision. I just left voicemails for all my members of Congress urging them to fight back. I hope the DoW loses this one.
puppycodes
Help me understand the line Anthropic is drawing in the sand?Don't get me wrong i'm glad they are unwilling to do certain things...but to me it also seems a little ironic that Anthropic literally is partnered with Palantir which already mass surveills the US. Claude was used in the operation in Venezuala.Their line not to cross seems absurdly thin?Or there is something mega scary thats already much worse they were asked to do which we dont know about I guess.
pamcake
It seems like some comments here are from merged threads AND front-dated?Makes for very confusing reading when comments from "1 hour ago" are actually on preceding events from earlier, before TFA news (announcement of designation).mods: Especially in sensitive and rapidly developing situations like this, please don't mess with timestamps of comments. It's effectively revisionism.
johnhamlin
So the government said, We need y’all to flip on the Minority Report and the Terminator modes or we’ll put you out of business… cool
fitzroy
https://xcancel.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538Government: We will destroy any company that refuses to create the Torment Nexus
siliconc0w
Google and Amazon both partner with them and sell to the US Government... so does this mean they can't run on Google or AWS infrastructure?
neves
USA is trying to use IA for something so evil that a for profit company is risking to loose a lot of money and even close. Nobody are allowed to know what these evil things are.And people here are debating legalese...
dwabyick
The most horrifying thing is this means that they’re trying to spy en masse on all US citizens.
oj2828
Once the democrats are in the oval office again can they label palantir a supply chain risk? Is there anything stopping the administations red or blue from shutting down any company that doens't agree 100% with them politically
daxfohl
I'm convinced the only possible good end game here is if this leads to a showdown where GenAI is just made illegal full stop.
karim79
I read the tweet and honestly thought I was reading parody.It almost is parody that a former Fox News host is the SECRETARY OF WAR.
amelius
What's with the Republicans. Do they want a strong or a weak government? I can't tell anymore.
827a
Its one thing to say "we cannot abide by these terms, so let's part ways", and its another entirely to respond this drastically. The Trump administration will look back on this decision as the most consequential in their efforts to win the 2026 midterms and Republican efforts in 2028. This is a $400B+ American company that has significant partial ownership from Amazon, Google, and other private equity sources; they just made serious enemies in SV, many of whom supported Trump in his 2024 election victory.
truthbe
You would have to believe that an AI model would be 100% correct in its decision to discern an enemy from a civilian. So an intelligent lunatic, or an uninformed lunatic politician
0xcb0
Hey Anthropic, Europe welcome you!
zmmmmm
So I'm very curious, assuming this happens and is later found to be an illegal order - will Anthropic have rights to redress (ie: monetary compensation)?Because that could be absolutely staggering.
blobbers
This is getting silly guys. All on the same team. Need to have a c.t.j. meeting.
fumeux_fume
Working with the government is typically a huge pain in the ass unless you have a lot of friends on the inside. It's not hard to do the math when you you dealing with a government whose acting incredibly oppositional.
anon
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TYPE_FASTER
Wild that not wanting to support fully autonomous weaponry…yet…is the sane take here.
strongpigeon
I can't seem to find what being designated a "Supply-Chain Risk to National Security" implies from a legal standpoint. From what I can find, it doesn't seem to be a formal legal status. Curious if anyone knows more.
neves
"strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act"How going against the most powerful army on Earth is coward?
ElijahLynn
https://xcancel.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070
tombert
I had the co-founder of Levels and current head of the US Treasury Sam Corcos reach out to me a few weeks ago for a job. I was initially kind of excited because I had really wanted to work for the Treasury a couple years ago, so I took the phone call with him.He called me and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I realized that he's one of the DOGE/Elon acolytes and he started talking about how he's "fixing" the Treasury and that every engineer is apparently supposed to use Claude for everything.It would have been a considerable pay downgrade which wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker but being managed by DOGE would be, but mostly relevant is that I found it kind of horrifying that we're basically trusting the entire world's bank to be "fixed" with Claude Code. It's one thing when your ad platform or something is broken, but if Claude fucks something up in the Treasury that could literally start a war. We're going to "fix" all the code with a bunch of mediocre code that literally no one on earth actually understands and that realistically no one is auditing [1].If they're going to "fix" all the Treasury code with stuff generated by Claude, I'm not sure they will have a choice but to stick with it, because very it seems very likely to me that it will be incomprehensible to anything but Claude.[1] Be honest, a lot of AI generated code is not actually being reviewed by humans; I suspect that a lot of the AI code that's being merged is still basically being rubber-stamped.
TheAlchemist
Don't worry, they will be seized by the government soon. Sounds crazy right. Not that far from the headline though, that would sound insane a mere 18 months ago.
kranke155
This is just an authoritarian state, wanting to use AI to implement something almost certainly anti freedom. We have to be honest about that.
loss_flow
The next question, what person wants to send all their personal questions to whichever AI lab does help the government do domestic surveillance
JakeStone
It'll get cleared up.TACO
yunnpp
Anthropic should become an actual supply chain risk and move its HQ to China now, lol.
solfox
If anything, isn’t this admitting that the government thinks Anthropic has better technology than OpenAI, Grok, etc?
gepardi
Sounds like I should upgrade to the $100 subscription in support on Anthropic.
niobe
The US is such a shit show. Personally I hope this doesn't affect Anthropic's growth and development because I quite enjoy using their products and see them evolve.
kledru
Sounds very much like "Department of War" designating humans a supply-chain risk.
jesse_dot_id
Will be interesting to see how quickly it becomes clear that most of Anthropic's competitors are stealing from them.
iofusion
I am directing my Department of Peace to designate Anthropic as a Supply-Chain Risk to Fascism.I have just purchased a chunk of extra usage credit. I encourage my peers to do the same. Let's send a message to those that work forces.
scrubs
Look folks when he's (trump) that stuck on stupid, he's right and you're wrong. Class it up, people! Class it up!
dewarrn1
The real question: did he have Claude write this for him?
binsquare
They should wear it like a badge of honor
suhputt
it's funny that this is being framed as big tech vs us government, when in reality this move is probably strongly influenced by the desire to help openai and other big tech against anthropic
threethirtytwo
Good, anthropic should sell there services to China introduce the “security risk” to China.
anon
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DudeOpotomus
The funny thing about stupid people, they do stupid things all the time...
4b11b4
Why does this feel like a Facebook post from the person who got broken up with
woggy
Maybe time for Anthropic to leave the US. Come to Australia :)
NathanFlurry
What does this mean for Bun (recently acquired by Anthropic)?
mnky9800n
this all seems like to me as a trumped up (lol) excuse for a government bailout of openai assuming openai steps in and fills anthropics shoes.
anon
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optimalsolver
In all this commotion I've completely forgotten that Anthropic dropped their safety pledge three days ago.
LightBug1
Stupid situation, but a badge of honour awarded to Anthropic.
mmooss
Why are so many adopting this name for what is by law, by the American people, called the Department of Defense? The name change pertains directly to the Anthropic issue, which is the function of the government and department, the power of the American people to govern themselves, and the role of the president relative to the soveriegn American people.
anon
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mbgerring
Can we all take a big step back and just ask why the DoD wants to use a fundamentally unreliable technology to guide deadly weapons?
lacoolj
Wonder what other countries are doing in this situation
ozten
Unserious people, in the most serious of positions.
davidw
> You sound like an unhinged person if you in plain words describe what’s happening, but the Trump admin demanded Anthropic’s AI be able to kill things for it without human approval and also do mass surveillance.> Anthropic said no, and now the admin is trying to destroy the company in retaliation.From https://bsky.app/profile/bbkogan.bsky.social/post/3mfuuprph5...
bhewes
So the DOW is using it till the mid term elections?
nomilk
> Anthropic's two hard lines:> 1. No mass domestic surveillance of Americans> 2. No fully autonomous weapons (kill decisions without a human in the loop)Surveillance takes place with or without Anthropic, so depriving DoW of Anthropic models doesn't accomplish much (although it does annoy Hegseth).The models currently used in kill decisions are probably primitive image recognition (using neural nets). Consider a drone circling an area distinguishing civilians from soldiers (by looking for presence of rifles/rpgs).New AI models can improve identification, thus reducing false positives and increasing the number of actual adversaries targeted. Even though it sounds bad, it could have good outcomes.
kumarvvr
This is the inflection point for the beginning of culling of the intellectual class. If not physically, atleast economically and socially.A few arrests and a few in detention centres, will be enough to make them fold and grovel.They are now categorised as "radical left" and woke.The elections will be controlled to "prevent the radical left take over of the greatest country on the planet".edit : The stage is also being set for total media control. My prediction is that the next target will be Google, specifically Youtube. You should start seeing talks about how the radical left is inflitrated youtube.
peteforde
Confirmed: we're living in hell.
LelouBil
This whole tweet seems very childish.
mhh__
The 20th century is finally over...
anon
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blurbleblurble
Something is clearly unraveling.
anon
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kelvinjps10
Since google aws have contracts with the governor, can they make cloud providers stop providing services to anthropic?
msp26
Batshit situation, respectable position from Dario throughout.But there's some irony in this happening to Anthropic after all the constant hawkish fearmongering about the evil Chinese (and open source AI sentiment too).
baby
This is only the first year of this fascist government, and I believe the first powerful company that is taking a stance? Meta, Apple, etc. have all bent the knee right?
vcryan
The US Government is such a bunch of clowns - it's hard to take their nonsense seriously... well except that their stupid policies kill people...
anigbrowl
I think an important point to consider is that the administration's demands for domestic deployment and automation of homicide are not so much due to a lack of technical ability or personnel resources to achieve sought-for military-strategic outcomes, but an unwillingness for anyone in the administration to take on the responsibility for those decisions.If an employee of the government makes a decision that subsequently turns out to be very very unpopular, that unpopularity is sooner or later going to coalesce and land on them, and the more unpopular it turns out to be the less of a shield legal arguments about immunity or pardons will be because so many people are increasingly out of patience with a system they deem to be corrupt. Being able to offload the political, legal, and personal risks of extremely consequential decisions onto The Bad Computer System is the political equivalent of crack cocaine - you might know that the feeling of freedom and power it provides is wholly illusory, you might know that it's likely to ruin your own and many other lives, you might know that it's a disaster for the health of the body politic...but it also offers the possibility that you can have an absolute blast and get away with it.My anecdotal experience of being around wealthy and powerful people over the years inclines me to think that not only do our social systems select in favor of people who take big risks for big rewards, but that virtually everyone in that class has a) done a lot of getting away with things legally speaking and b) enjoys using illegal drugs. Even if they've given up recreational drug taking or limit it to strictly defined times and places so as not to interfere with their business/personal success, they like thrills and have confidence about their ability to enjoy them without negative consequences. You need some of that risk-taking, high personal autonomy attitude if you aspire to be a mover and shaker as opposed to a leading figure in risk management or regulatory compliance.Everyone enjoys the feeling of power without responsibility; it's a fundamental underpinning of games and many other kinds of recreation. Add in significant amounts of money and people think differently about risk, as in the topical case of the experienced Supreme Court litigator who turned out to have have a secret life as a high-stakes poker gambler and eventually started betting against the IRS while filing his taxes (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/supreme-court-litig...).Now, if you're in the political-military sphere and you get your thrills by literally redrawing lines and relationships on the map of the world and deciding what the news on TV is going to be for the next day/week/month/year, and you get offered a tool that promises to give a significant edge over other players in this game but which also gives you a versatile and widely accepted excuse for avoiding consequences for the inevitable losing hands, there are massively compelling psychological incentives for using it. And correspondingly, there's going to be massive emotional disruption (and bad decision-making and behavior) if your supply is threatened. You might start labeling the people who are interfering with your good time as cognito-terrorists and telling all your friends and supporters that your formerly trustworthy supplier did you dirty...
daxfohl
Good. At least now I don't have to worry that my vibe-coded, unreviewed checkout button is accidentally going to hallucinate the command that blows up a kindergarten in Yemen.
csneeky
Bluster followed by a "we can't do it now but we will... soon". Whoever has the best model can do what they please you'll see. I work with these things daily as an engineer (been doing this shit for 25 years and wow it's like mana from heaven these days). Believe me no one is going to screw with themselves by not using the best one and right now Anthropic has it.
kirke
- Co-authored by Claude
_dain_
>Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.Nevermind Claude, does that mean Anthropic's offices can't use a power company if that same company happens to supply electricity to a US military base? What about the water, garbage disposal, janitorial services? Fedex? Credit card payments? Insurance companies? Law firms? All the normal boring stuff Anthropic needs that any other business needs.This is a corporate death penalty. Or corporate internal exile or something, I don't know of a good analogy.
mrcwinn
OpenAI came out just last night or today claiming they would hold the same line as Anthropic. Makes me think both sides knew Elon had already won the contract.
xfax
Fuck it, I am buying a Max Pro subscription just because of this.
shafyy
Stop calling it the Department of War, it's not the official name of that agency.
canadiantim
Grok in US gov in 3 2 1…
afavour
Old enough to remember when the likes of A16Z said they had to support Trump because the Biden admin was being too meddlesome in the tech industry.Sometimes it pays to think even two steps ahead of your most immediate thought…
anon
undefined
recursivecaveat
Presumably Trump will be returning his $90 million in lawsuit booty now that it's been decided you cannot say no to the government right? Heck he dodged the draft 5 times.
WarmWash
I don't know if we should be terrified by Hegseth's response, or relieved that the government doesn't just shrug and lie over privately agreed upon terms.
6510
I like how Grok managed to polish the t.. make the situation sound good.https://x.com/grok/status/2027518650710700068
runjake
> Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles.I don't think that Secretary Hegseth is qualified to speak on American principles.Cheating on multiple spouses[1], being an active alcoholic, and being accused of multiple sexual assaults and paying off the accusers[3] is fundamentally incompatible with being a Secretary of Defense and a good leader.Also, this violates freedom of speech and will probably get shot down in the courts.1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth#Marriages2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth plus multiple recent media pieces3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth#Abuse_and_sexual_...
dluan
it's so funny to me that anthropic was created specifically using the virtue signaling line of defensive safety against bad actors (ie the woo woo bad guy of chinese dictatorship), yet the real danger was always coming from inside the house - your own government being an absolute evil clusterfuck.
hugodan
we are experiencing marketing at its best
bubblewand
Trump's associated "Truth" ("Truth Social" is the name of his risible fake-Twitter and they call Tweets, "Truths" there) that preceded this:https://www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/36981Don't worry, this is an archive/mirroring site for his account, not the actual TS site.I'd comment on how wackadoo this all is, but, 1) that applies to almost everything these days, and 2) the post's right there, see for yourself.
hirvi74
While I still think the GPT models are superior, I am very inclined to keep my Claude subscription because of this news. Even if Claude provides me with the occasional response out of left-field, I find that easier to live with than a world Anthropic is fighting to avoid.
markhahn
Does anyone believe he's correct? That is, not lying? That is, abusing the office, violating his oath?If we don't impeach for this, we might as well surrender to MAGA.
HPMOR
Such a dipshit administration. I hope California secedes from the union to protect our champions.
hbarka
David Sacks
sleight42
Ironic. This makes me want to quit ChatGPT in favor of Claude because fuck this administration.
gdubs
I'd at least, you know, pretend we had a top-secret amazing model. By airing all of this publicly, they've basically admitted that Claude is the best there is.
djoldman
I can't wait to read the transcript of the AUSA in front of a federal judge trying to explain threatening to declare a company a supply chain risk if the company doesn't supply things to the government.
iainctduncan
Finally silicon valley is being shown who they sucked up to.
underlipton
How 'bout that government meddling in the free market, eh?Every conservative needs to do some very deep, very serious soul-searching. As for me, as a hyper-progressive, I'm drawing up proposals for nationalizing real estate developers in order to force them to build new houses to sell below cost.
anon
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nemo44x
A level up, this is only the beginning of the political headwinds for AI. There will be a lot more, especially if constituencies begin to get displaced. I don’t think “job loss” will really occur, at least not in a dramatic way overnight. But I do believe there will be both aggressive regulation and very aggressive taxation of this technology in the near/mid-term.
jongjong
We can actually get a glimpse of how AI might wipe out humanity here.Model collapse making models identify everyone as a potential threat who needs to be eliminated.Companies should have a right to refuse such requests on moral grounds though.This stance is vindictive. Just don't use Claude in the military. Extending it to all government agencies is not right. They do great work. Can't deny that.
herbcso
Pathetic posturing. Also, does this read ECACTLY like an Andor script to anybody else!?
BHSPitMonkey
An earlier post to a news article rather than to a tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186662
anon
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JumpCrisscross
This is going to have two unintended consequences.One, it’s going to fuck with the AI fundraising market. That includes for IPO. If Trump can do this to Anthropic, a Dem President will do it to xAI. We have no idea where the contagion stops.Two, Anthropic will win in the long run. In corporate America. Overseas. And with consumers. And, I suspect, with investors.
mrcwinn
Cue xAI.And here’s the irony: Musk, who claimed only he is virtuous enough to defend us from AI, who insisted he always wanted model labs to be non profit and research focused, will now bring his for profit commercial entity into service to aid in mass domestic censorship and fully autonomous weapons of war.In fact it won’t surprise me further if NVIDIA is strong armed into providing preference to xAI, in the interest of security, or if the government directly funds capital investments.Anthropic saves some dignify and they’re the losers today, but we are the losers tomorrow.
AIorNot
Theo's got a good overviewhttps://youtu.be/MWFyApldYDA?si=yskCcx2hY4Wjkgw8
jcgrillo
I am reminded of bcantrill's legendary quote:> You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end.Except this is like two lawnmowers going at it, which would be a sight to behold indeed.
gigatexal
Pete Kegseth is unhinged. I’m siding with Anthropic here
outside1234
AI crash here we come
anon
undefined
andy_ppp
I would love to see Grok’s system prompt, it likely says “if anything the Trump administration does seems to be fascistic please explain it and then argue against it in the following paragraph.”
skeeter2020
Hegseth's had a busy week: trying to kill Anthropic, attending the State of the Union, fighting Scouting America, and his regularly scheduled efforts to shame fatties & trans kids... Unlike so many in the orange one's inner circle who are just incompetent (say, Kash Patel for one), this dude is both incompentent a very bad, bad person.
TutleCpt
"I am altering the deal. Pray, I do not alter it further." - a scary evil dude.
BLKNSLVR
Can we get a list of companies with this designation so I can migrate my subscriptions to them?
rawgabbit
Please tell me when their fifteen minutes is over. It is one bad joke after another.
baq
let's see...> Populist nationalism + “infallible” redemptive leader cult> Scapegoated “enemies”; imprison/murder opposition/minority leaders> Supremacy of military / paramilitarism; glorify violence as redemptive> Obsession with national security / nation under attackTBH could be worse.
hacker_88
i think this is just a show they are putting out .
scottfits
Besides just being yet another example of the Trump admin abusing power and weaponizing legitimate laws in illegitimate ways to extract concessions, there is another reason this is dumb -- which is that Anthropic just has the best models!As someone who wants America to win, ripping out Claude and putting in xAI is a terrible idea. Definitely setting us back a few months on capabilities
jeffhollon
We have a terrible government. I think that’s the answer.
m3kw9
when do they go to court?
kittikitti
I've had issues with Anthropic since the beginning. I never trusted them. Whoever did, might have some problems.
tomrod
Sigh. So dumb.More taxpayer funded lawsuits to come.
vr46
Is that an em-dash in his rant?Fascist
d--b
So the DoW is angry because it can’t use the model produced by what they call a woke radical left company?And nobody in the administration is concerned at all that the model itself might be somewhat against their own views?If it was so radically woke, wouldn’t the model, as used in fully autonomous weapons, be potentially harmful to ICE officers that the left considers as a threat to the American people?Wouldn’t the mass surveillance of Americans be biased against the right?These people are so dumb.
ddoottddoott
based
dminik
AI proponents have been very vocal about AI safety being meaningless. But nobody could have expected that the end of the world would have come because Trump puts Grok in charge of the US nuclear arsenal. We truly live in the dumbest timeline.
jmyeet
Once again we have the US actually doing what the says China might do in the future.It's true that Chinese companies are extensions of the state. But they serve the state. And the state has thus far served the citizenry eg raising 800M people out of extreme poverty. China's HSR network of 32,000 miles of track was built in 20 years for ~$900B. That's less than the annual US military budget.You can look at the relationship between the US government and US companies in one of two ways:1. US companies serve the government but the government doesn't serve the people. After all, where's our infrastructure, healthcare, housing and education? or2. The US government serves US corporate interests to enrich the ultra-wealthy.Either way a handful of people are getting incredibly wealthy and all it takes is for a little corruption. Political donations, jobs after government, positions on boards and so on.
eduction
This will likely be deeply unpopular but: Good!The place to set policies on the use of hammers and police enforcement is not at the counter of the hardware store. “You want a hammer but don’t have a contractors license? Are you in a training program? Oh you just want to hang framed art - can I see your lease, does it allow hammering metal into the walls?”We govern these things through laws and a democratic process. Police enforce the laws.I don’t want some overconfident Silicon Valley engineering firm telling me how to use my digital tools, and you shouldn’t either.Whatever you think of this administration, our military should not have to ask contractors permission for their operations.To stop mass surveillance and autonomous lethality, pass laws. Asking unelected tech executives to do this is asking for trouble. They have no business doing it.
ChrisArchitect
Related:Trump orders federal agencies to stop using Anthropic AI tech 'immediately'https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185528Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of Warhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121
danavar
lol
stared
And the White House, quoting Donald Trump: https://xcancel.com/WhiteHouse/status/2027497719678255148"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military.The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE..." - President Donald J. Trump
kapluni
Kudos to anthropic for standing up for their principles. Let's remember all the silicon valley leaders who embraced fascism without even needing to be pressured. We need more billionaires with backbones.
khazhoux
No surprise here. All government actions are now in the Trump mafia boss style.“You won’t let us use your product unrestricted for military applications? Fuck you, we’re going to stop using it for anything at all across the entire federal government, even if not remotely related to military.”
LightBug1
Hey Hegseth ........................./´¯/)....................,/¯../.................../..../............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...').........\.................'...../..........''...\.......... _.·´............\..............(..............\.............\...
sensanaty
I might be being a bit conspiratorial, but is anyone else not buying this whole song and dance, from either side? Anthropic keeps talking about their safeguards or whatever, but seeing their marketing tactics historically it just reads more like trying to posture and get good PR for "fighting the system" or whatever."Our AI is so advanced and dangerous Trump has to beg us to remove our safeguards, and we valiantly said no! Oh but we were already spying on people and letting them use our AIs in weapons as long as a human was there to tick a checkbox"I just don't buy anything spewing out of the mouths of these sociopathic billionaires, and I trust the current ponzi schemers in the US gov't even less.Especially given how much astroturfing Anthropic loves doing, and the countless comments in this thread saying things like "Way to go Amodei, I'm subbing to your 200 dollar a month plan now forever!!11".One thing I know for sure is that these AI degenerates have made me a lot more paranoid of anything I read online.
blibble
ah yes, fascism
aichen_dev
[dead]
koreanguy
[dead]
i_love_cookies
[dead]
poszlem
tl;dr: All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
Glyptodon
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small_model
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riazrizvi
[flagged]
twocommits
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nelox
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DonHopkins
Hegseth gets so belligerent when he's hammered.
coffeemug
I can honestly understand both positions. The U.S. military must be able to use technology as it sees fit; it cannot allow private companies to control the use of military equipment. Anthropic must prevent a future where AIs make autonomous life and death decisions without humans in the loop. Living in that future is completely untenable.What I don’t understand is why the two parties couldn’t reach agreement. Surely autonomous murderous robots is something U.S. government has interest in preventing.
xyzelement
I am fine with this. If you are a defense contractor, you are a defense contractor, and you follow the military needs that you government believes are necessary - or you stop being a defense contractor.I wouldn't want a bullet manufacturer to hold back on my government based on their own internal sense of ethics (whether I agreed with it or not, it's not their place)
anon
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eagerpace
Everyone is getting wrapped around the axel here but this is about the big picture, not the specifics. A private company should not have the ability to dictate how its technology is used by the government. If they can’t agree to that, then don’t sell your technology to the government. Personally, I don’t want to be spied on by the government with it (I don’t think their tech does that) but I also don’t want Anthropic having operational control over a mission.