Comment by ApolloFortyNine
6 hours ago
I know everyone says this is political but it actually seems like a textbook designation. Anthropic wanted to have rules on how the military used AI, the military said no and therefore doesn't want anthropic used anywhere in their supply line.
This is like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike orders, now the military needs to have a special box of pens that don't have stipulations attached. With AI usage it would be the same thing except applied to entire product chains. It seems like it would just add more complexity to operations.
You can agree with the rules anthropic wanted, but having rules set by a private company at all that apply to the military does seem fair for the military to object to.
>The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary
Though they'd probably put the DoD on the cybersecurity whitelist today, the very idea of the claude whitelists for certain functionality already exists and is being used by them today.
> This is like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike orders, now the military needs to have a special box of pens that don't have stipulations attached.
It's pretty common for software licenses to state that it's prohibited from being used in medical devices, life support systems, nuclear facilities, etc. Will software with those licenses also be designated supply-chain risks?
I think the better analogy is an insane nuclear power plant manager deciding it wants to buy pens to use as neutron-flux regulator rods — because after all, a pen is functionally a pencil and a pencil is made of graphite.
Then the pen manufacturer hears about this and says “Our pens are not made of graphite and are not suitable to be used in nuclear reactors”, to which the reactor owner says “it’s fine, they fit in the graphite rod holes, and we’re just using until the next generation of pens come out which will do an even better job”, and then the pen manufacturer says “I’m not going to sell you any pens until you agree that they will be used only writing.”
The previous power plant manager had, of course, already signed a contract agreeing to those terms; the power plant is subsequently under new management and upset about being bound by this contract, so they designate that none of their suppliers of parts and fuel are allowed to have any commercial dealings with the pen manufacturer or use these pens for any purpose, even writing.
And why would the manager ban the manufacturers pens even for writing, except out of spite to punish the manufacturer? And coming back to the real case, is the supply chain risk designation supposed to be a punishment or only there to actually protect the supply chain?
That analogy still makes this sound like a textbook designation. In that situation the pen manufacturer is expected to sell pens without a theory of what will happen next. The person who buys a pen might use it to kill someone or commit horrific legal/moral crimes and that has nothing at all to do with the pen manufacturer.
I can see how I might reasonably refuse to deal with that pen manufacturer. The pen manufacturer is unreasonably pushy and they're going to be massive trouble to deal with because they're all up in my business in a paranoid way and disrupting my use of their product. Companies have made my never-again list for far smaller slights.
This is the most accurate parallel as far as I can tell. I've not seen any evidence that Anthropic deliberately built automated systems or escape hatches that literally prevent the US Government from using Claude to do these things. Other than the basic AI Safety mechanisms in place for everyone/general use. It's almost the reverse, where they explicitly don't want to strip away guardrails that say things like "don't kill people".
The intent and framing matters a lot here. Refusal to remove safety features is a LOT different than deliberately building mechanisms to sabotage would-be operations.
It doesn't seem like you understand what a supply chain risk designation is for.
It's to ensure that companies that the DoW relies on don't build on top of a product that isn't fit for DoW work.
You seem to be agreeing with this designation in a way. The DoW essentially said "Pen company won't let us use their pens as neutron-flux regulator rods, so anyone building power plants for us isn't allowed to use these pens as neutron-flux regulator rods".
What is the problem you have with that?
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> I know everyone says this is political but it actually seems like a textbook designation
It literally is a textbook definition, signed into US law:
“Supply chain risk,” means the risk that an adversary may sabotage, maliciously introduce unwanted function, or otherwise subvert the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of a covered system so as to surveil, deny, disrupt, or otherwise degrade the function, use, or operation of such system (see 10 U.S.C. 3252).
To add onto what another commenter said, the pen analogy would be more like the manufacturer designing pens that stopped working when used to sign strike orders they disagreed with.
Selling a pen labeled "this pen will refuse to sign certain orders" is not sabotage or malicious and is thus not a supply chain risk. The DoD is free to not buy from Anthropic, but designating them as a supply chain risk is incorrect, as well as arguably arbitrary and capricious given their public criticism of Anthropic's beliefs.
The DoD buys from suppliers, who buy from suppliers, and so on. Hence supply chain. Hence supply chain risk.
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The pen example makes sense if the intermediary were to ship the pen as part of the final product but not if the pen is simply used to draft designs of the final product. It seems that this designation would prohibit using the pen anywhere in the process which doesn't really make sense.
> so as to surveil
How does Android and iPhone meet the grade given apps have pretty consistently leaked locations, base layouts etc?
apps, not the actual devices by the supplier
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Who is the adversary in this case?
the courts interpret the statute, we have to read their argument where they explain why they think that's not the right definition to focus on. (the "adversary" is in section 3252, but they say that independently from that section 4713 allows determination of exigency.)
https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2026/09/26-104... see page 30
Anthropic
"risk that an adversary may" any of them.
China, Russia, Iran, come to mind.
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That's not at all what this is. Anthropic was very clear up-front what they would and wouldn't allow. They were not going to "subvert" anything. "Degrade function" in this context means that there is a risk that ongoing changes to the covered system will cause problems for the government. That wouldn't have been the case here; it would have been clear from the start what the military would and wouldn't be allowed to do with it, and that wouldn't change.
It is not the textbook definition, because what Anthropic is doing is not sabotage, malicious, or subversive. Those are the key words in the definition. They are just refusing to add a feature to the military's specification. So their bid falls short of requirements.
just because someone copied one sentence from some online reference it doesn't mean that the court used it for arguing their decision.
https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2026/09/26-104...
> Whatever paradigmatic examples individual members of Congress may have had in mind, the statutory definition is not limited to “adversar[ies],” 10 U.S.C. § 3252(d)(4), and instead covers “any person,”
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> They are just refusing to add a feature to the military's specification.
That fails to accord with the claim:
>The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary
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??? What are you talking about. Anthropic isn't an adversary and they're not required to sell for purposes they don't want to. It's not sabotage and it's not malicious.
This is a designation reserved for terrorists and the link.
If you're preventing the military from doing some action because you disagree with it, that makes you an adversary.
Actively handicapping a product that's otherwise capable qualifies.
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that section is not important (the court says so, read page 30 https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2026/09/26-104... ) section 4713 is ("determination of exigency" regarding procurement decisions)
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I think you're confused. When the White House decided to stop having federal agencies buy paper straws [1], they didn't designate paper straws a supply chain risk, they just stopped buying them. The term has a very specific meaning which would not apply in the pen scenario.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/endi...
It's not a great analagy; it's more like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike orders, who then only ships pens with cameras and solenoids so that the point stays retracted until the camera verifies that the paper doesn't include a drone strike orders.
And that would be absolutely fine for a pen manufacturer to do. It would make them unsuitable for meeting the requirements for a government contract as a pen supplier for signing orders, but would not make them a supply-chain risk.
Same goes for Anthropic: they would only consider offering a version of their product for military use that had certain restrictions. The government is free to accept that version or reject it. Rejecting it and designating Anthropic a supply-chain risk is just political intimidation and retribution for not playing ball.
i am not sure even this covers it.
it would be like the pen manufacturer who ships pens with an automatic point retractor, AND a video livestream to the manufacturer from the pen AND remote control of the point retractor.
anthropic and contractors monitor the livestream remotely to make sure the pen is not signing drone strike orders and may choose to activate the retractor.
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Anthropic did not change the terms. Those were the terms the US Government signed. It was not secret, it was explicit identified and accepted as a term.
The analogy would be: “A customer agreed to a contract, and after running into a clause of the contract they no longer wanted to follow…canceled the contract unilaterally…which also violated the contract.”
And then declared the other side a supply chain risk, claiming it is a potential vector for a national adversary to break in and cause unwanted bad things to happen unrelated to this contract.
It seems like absurdly bad faith starting at breaking the contract (over "you have to follow the law", no less!) and then to retaliate after that with trying to destroy the company's reputation and ability to do business. The boot licking going on here justifying the government operating in bad faith is both disappointing and short sighted. I didn't think the leopards would eat MY face!
And then another company got the contract, claiming they got all the conditions (and more!) that the original contractor was sour about.
I don't know how anyone can look at the situation and see anything but an abuse of power. The government could have just as easily contacted with another provider. This whole thing is vindictive
“the military said no and therefore doesn't want anthropic used anywhere in their supply line”
It’s clearly a punitive measure and has nothing to do with national security.
If a supplier uses Anthropic to develop a product, how does that pose a risk to the DoD or national security? The DoD can specify that a third party system can’t rely on Anthropic for DoD use without designating the company a supply risk. It was very clear that the administration was punishing the company for saying “no”.
Anthropic took the position that our military’s decision making power should be subordinate to Anthropic’s constraints.
Any dependency on a company that thinks they have that moral authority and has the technical means to enforce it is absolutely a risk to the supply chain.
If you want to blame someone or something for this, we should start with Dario and “effective altruism”.
> Anthropic took the position that our military’s decision making power should be subordinate to Anthropic’s constraints.
Not at all. They want their product kept out of specific decisions because it's not capable.
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They're offering a service, with contractual limitations that the Pentagon agreed to.
It doesn't seem any different to me than Dominos pizza offering to deliver pizzas to the Pentagon but not to the strait of Hormuz. If that somehow makes the military subordinate to Dominos Pizza, just because Dominos is able to dictate the terms of their own delivery service, then sure, ban anyone in the military supply chain from being able to order pizzas. It would make the same amount of sense.
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But why can’t the military just not use Anthropic? Why can’t the DoD say “ok we’re going with a different vendor”? Even if you find Anthropic’s stance distasteful, why support taking punitive action on Anthropic?
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Supply chain risk is a technical definition not a vibes based one.
And companies absolutely have the right to dictate terms. The idea that the DoD has the unilateral authority to do whatever it wants is literal textbook fascism. It's never been the law in the US and it should not be now.
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No, the DOD has super specific acquisition rulesets that don't apply outside the DOD umbrella. Limiting acquisition or refusing sales can be done without being flagged a risk. FedRAMP levels accomplish this without the political intrigue and the unnecessary defense of this action not being political.
In other words: the same outcome could easily be accomplished without being punitive to Anthropic.
> This is like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike order
I am pretty receptive to the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, but we are taking a big leap from pen to llms/artificial intelligence. I am sympathetic to some of your other points, but I simply must reject this analogy.
"the government wants to use our tool to murder people", and declaring that company that says "no" into a "supply chain risk" is absolutely retaliatory and an attempt by the government to influence the behavior of the company.
The moral and ethical scale of the issue makes this far different than someone buying a pen.
> "the government wants to use our tool to murder people", and declaring that company that says "no" into a "supply chain risk" is absolutely retaliatory and an attempt by the government to influence the behavior of the company.
If Lockheed could brick its planes if the US planned to use them for military action it disagreed with (and showed some indication they couldn't be trusted not to do it), would they be a supply chain risk?
It is not the role of a defense contractors to have oversight and control power over the military they're supplying.
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Ridiculous hypothetical for analogy purposes, but, imagine if Anthropic had developed a new type of rifle that the military was considering using, which had a black-box AI system that could prevent the trigger being pulled when aimed at certain targets. The military says, ok that's cool, as long as we can be in control of that decision-making process. Anthropic says, no, we know better than you and better than the law what kind of targets should and should not be shot with our rifles. The military would then respond “lol, lmao even” and then deem them to be a supply chain risk and adopt another rifle instead.
Or they could just not buy the product in the first place. The supply chain risk part is pure retribution.
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No, they would simply not buy it.
That’s not even the end of the story. Anthropic has sued. They really want to sell their rifles to the government and retain control.
You’re just describing the exact situation we’re in but substituting a drone for a rifle. If the government is mad they should just partner with a contractor who is less concerned about this, which lo-and-behold they did it’s a company called OpenAI.
Anthropic isn’t a supply chain risk since they easy found someone else
Non-sense. Pentagon has many many uses of AI besides autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance, which Anthropic doesn't restrict. ie: intelligence analysis, target selection, payroll, inventory, research, supply chain and logistics, medical, bureaucracy, ...
We cannot subordinate our military’s decision making power — in any arena — to a private company.
Our military must also not be dependent on a private company that believes it has the moral prerogative to control our military’s decisions, and would have the technical capability to do so.
Maybe the military should just seize the technology and nationalize the company then? Because clearly, paying a private party voluntarily entering into a contract on mutually-agreed upon terms is now a polite fiction that can be done away with.
The military is bound by contract, just like any other government agency. They entered into a contract, with these clauses well-known. This was OK because they have all the same problems every other organization uses AI for.
They could’ve just negotiate a new contract with OpenAI, without banning it from every government agency. But I’m sure that would’ve triggered some kind of extra clause and cost money…
Your entire statement lacks any type of fact.
This is ridiculous. Anthropic should be free to say the terms for using their service. It doesn't "subordinate" the military, and the military is far from some infallible, unquestionable force here.
If the military wants to use AI to autonomously kill people, they can - Anthropic is not stopping them - thy just can't with Anthropic's services.
The government retaliating by then claiming that any use of Anthropic is risk is an obvious farce. How would Anthropic be any less of a risk if they let Claude autonomously kill people?
No entity should have a right to dictate whether your private company does business with someone or not. The military can pound sand if they don't like your contract terms. That is if you believe in democracy and capitalism. If you don't, then it's not a problem to you.
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Right but the military wants to be able to use a tool they are paying for in all cases, not just ones the manufacturer thinks they should.
If I sold steel to the Pentagon but then tried to say they they couldn't use it for ships and tanks but they are free to use for warehouses they would react the same way as they are doing now.
Edit add: What is targeting? What is surveillance?
If someone in the intelligence analysis department uses AI to generate a report, then someone else uses that report for targeting did they just break the terms? Where is that line?
Much easier for the Pentagon to say no.
Your "but then" is off-base. This is selling steel for the express purpose of nuclear reactors, with a contractual clause against its use in tanks, and the US government deciding that it doesn't feel like abiding by the rules in the contract.
> If I sold steel to the Pentagon but then tried to say they they couldn't use it for ships and tanks but they are free to use for warehouses they would react the same way as they are doing now.
They sure as hell shouldn't! Selling steel for any use except ships and tanks is a little odd but it's not a risk.
(I'm ignoring the "but then" because this was about future sales not previous ones.)
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i think this is more like the pen maker doesnt want the military top brass calling their pen sales guy to make the kill/no kill decisions while using the pen to sign drone strike orders.
similarly the pen owner doesnt want to make a variation where the pen also doubles as a knife
Wouldn't that make any product with a licensing agreement a supply chain risk?
No, of course not, because life isn't black and white. Just those with licensing agreements that conflict with the militaries mission, where the product could be manipulated to hinder the mission. Most manufacturers would jump at the chance to rewrite their licensing agreements specifically for the military just to get a government contract.
This was not manipulated to hinder the mission. Every account of this indicates it was clearly spelled out. They could not use it for mass surveillance or for targeting. The lawyers at the DOD did not miss this. They agreed to the terms, because they had no intent to use it for such purpose purposes.
This is like the change order from hell.
Nothing was stopping the DOD from just entering into a new contract with OpenAI…
But if they don’t jump at the chance to retroactively rewrite the already-signed license, you’re OK with designating them a supply-chain risk?
That’s going to make it rather risky for anyone to sign licenses with the DoD. In fact, it renders the licenses pointless since you just have to do anything the licensee says.
I mean typically the outcome of civil suits is black and white (at least on a per-claim basis).
So Amazon and Microsoft don't enforce cloud licensing agreements with the USG? If the government wants to add 3,000 Windows users to support their mission Microsoft is shit out of luck in getting paid for them?
> Anthropic wanted to have rules on how the military used AI
No, they want to have rules on how the military used Anthropic AI.
Military would still be free to use OpenAI for the nasty stuff
Yes, in fact the military has a system in place to make sure that they only that they only use alternate suppliers and on Anthropic AI, They do this by placing a designation on Anthropic AI that it is a risk to the supply chain, which forces purchasers to use other suppliers.
I don't think this is how preferred suppliers have typically worked through the supply chain risk considering the US has definitely had preferred suppliers before and has not historically used this against a US company that was not on the list and the power of such a designation extends far past the military into all parts of the government. I'm pretty sure this has more traditionally been relegated to simple requirements or specifications.
The reason it appears corrupt is that OpenAI has the exact same restrictions (https://openai.com/index/our-agreement-with-the-department-o...) but was not declared a supply chain risk. If two vendors have the same restrictions and they only designate one, then the designation must be arbitrary and/or capricious.
Edit: I was wrong, the statement I linked is extremely dishonest and I was misled. The contract language lower down makes it clear that there are no "red lines", and OpenAI products can in fact be used for mass domestic surveillance, autonomous weapons, and social credit systems as long as they are considered legal.
>OpenAI has the exact same restrictions
No it doesn't. Specifically OpenAI had a "all lawful purposes" clause (which plausibly includes the existing mass surveillance apparatus), but Anthropic did not.
You're right, what an incredibly dishonest statement. The actual contract language in there makes it clear that there are no restrictions. My bad.
I thought the difference is that clearly written rules or SLAs are acceptable and can even be negotiated before signing a contract, but having a person, in this case Amodei himself, manually approve DOJ's usage case by case with his own moral judgement after a contract is signed is not okay.
No one wanted case-by-case veto ability at Anthropic. The red lines were made clear ahead of time: No use of Anthropic models for autonomous weapons (Skynet) or mass-domestic surveillance, negotiated in the agreement.
OpenAI, xAI, and Google happily agreed to DoW contracts which allow both of those use cases.
Do you think OpenAI's terms for the DoD are published on a website? Pretty sure when Anthropic got zapped, OpenAI sent DoD a memo 500ms later saying they wouldn't restrict use.
Look at it pragmatically. What does the DoD use every single procurement for? Hint: military use.
Were they the same restrictions though?
OpenAI just said no surveillance of U.S. persons.
Anthropic could have gone further; I think it's likely they did.
There are three restrictions:
> No use of OpenAI technology for mass domestic surveillance.
> No use of OpenAI technology to direct autonomous weapons systems.
> No use of OpenAI technology for high-stakes automated decisions (e.g. systems such as “social credit”).
These are stronger than Anthropic's restrictions (https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war), as OpenAI says themselves: "We think our agreement has more guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic’s. [...] Based on what we know, we believe our contract provides better guarantees and more responsible safeguards than earlier agreements, including Anthropic’s original contract."
Edit: I was wrong, see my original comment. Sorry.
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A much closer analogy than the pen one is a SAAS company having an EULA. As annoying as EULAs are I don’t think it counts as being malicious or subversive if you are very open and clear with your prospective customers what that EULA contains?
I think this was discussed ad nauseum last time so I am wondering if somehow this has changed but the biggest part of the issue last time was the retaliation. You seem to suggest that this was due to the government not wanting restrictions on their actions. I feel this severely downplays how unusual this designation is considering, like Anthropic says, this has not been applied to domestic companies.
Why couldn't excluding Anthropic be done a different mechanism than a supply chain risk. Why wouldn't this be a standard part of an agreement or a request and simply refuse to renew or cancel a contract rather than being designated a supply chain risk. If some third party contractor for an unrelated non military reason wanted to use Claude as part of their process, it seems perfectly allowable.
If this was a remotely standard way of operation, why did a fair amount of corporate America sign briefs concerned with the retaliatory aspect.
Parts of the action seemed wholly retaliatory as well since Pentagon officials certainly used it as a threat. Why can't a US company have views contrary to the policies of the US government? Certainly the US government is free to not do business with them, but this designation affects everybody doing any kind of indirect business with the US government which is a rather long chain. If this becomes a legitimate mechanism, how might we distinguish caring about a secure supply chain and simply wiping out a company that disagreed with a pro war attitude? If a machining shop had a policy against manufacturing weapons at all, could they be blocked from making server racks for Microsoft or perhaps light fixtures for the Department of Labor? There are plenty of areas that are, again, non military? I don't think it's credible to claim that Anthropic will deliberately sabotage operations.
>Anthropic opposing the US government
Is it not possible that this would change the risk profile of depending on them. It makes sense to work with people who support you than oppose you for things which are critical.
- Having principles and sticking to them is not opposing.
- Just because you don't do everything someone wants you to do does not make you a supply chain risk.
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Who runs the government changes every 2 to 4 years… are you suggesting we completely swap every vendor in the US government to align with whatever political party is in office?
There’s nothing indicating Anthropic was not keeping their end of the contract. If they had, there would have been other recourse.
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I didn't understand what you said or your analogy, sorry maybe I'm stupid. Would you be able to explain this differently? Maybe something implied was omitted and I didn't follow that.
It's not you, the analogy they used was wrong, idiotic, and unnecessary.
This would be like Boeing refusing to let the DoD fly a military 737 at over 800MPH, and they designate them a supply chain risk because they really really want to make the plane go past 800MPH.
It would be pretty surprising to allow a private company to control the military's use in realtime.
Nothing can stand in the way of America's forever wars, genocide, and automated killing, including performative objections by a prominent tech company.
I suppose we're supposed to be satisfied that the letter of the law supports this steamroller? Because that's what matters?
The legal apparatus is one of the tools the death machine uses to get what it wants.
It can be a textbook designation and a capricious punishment at the same time. It's almost comical, to suggest that anything about this decision was reasonable. Makes me long for the days of n-gate.com.
Being on the offensive cyber security whitelist for Mythos doesn't stop you from getting constant rejections. I don't know how you screw up something as simple as a whitelist.
You could use the same logic to defend the military declaring that Anthropic is full of pedophiles and therefore they cannot use their products as it would be contributing to pedophilia.
Anthropic offered a contract, with certain conditions, as do all contracts everywhere; that's their purpose. The military did not want to agree to those conditions. If they had stopped there, and refused to sign the contract, all would be good. (It's actually worse, they did sign such a contract, and then decided they wanted the contract to say something different than it actually did. "Pray I don't alter it any further.")
> >The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized [emphasis mine]
That is speculation, and you can't call it a "textbook designation" without discussing whether there's a basis for that "reasonable fear". Again, that argument also works for declaring you have a reasonable fear that giving money to Anthropic will support pedophilia. We do not know the specifics, but I at least have heard of zero evidence that Anthropic would sabotage something they signed a legal contract for, and yet I have an abundance of evidence that this administration will use whatever contortions are necessary to pressure and punish those who interfere with it getting what it wants. It all hinges on the word "reasonable", and based on the evidence that is public, this specific fear seems more ridiculous than reasonable to me.
If the government somehow had a way to force Anthropic to sign a contract that it did not want to sign, then this fear might become more reasonable. The twist is that this supply chain risk designation is exactly that. If Anthropic now capitulated, the accusation of supply chain risk (eg from Anthropic employees acting alone) would be justified. So the only way Anthropic can reasonably be considered a supply chain risk is because it is accused of being a supply chain risk.
This is a textbook example, yes, but it's a textbook example of corruption and judicial capture.
> Though they'd probably put the DoD on the cybersecurity whitelist today, the very idea of the claude whitelists for certain functionality already exists and is being used by them today.
And if they signed a contract permitting fully autonomous killbots, then using the whitelist mechanism would be a contract violation. I have some degree of faith that we'd know if such a contract were signed, because half the staff would quit. (As opposed to half the Google staff quitting after signing such a contract, which has been proven to be an incorrect expectation -- such a contract was signed, and I've heard of exactly one person quitting over it. There may be more, I don't know.)
I don't get it, did the US government and military stop using Claude? I thought they were using it to choose objectives to bomb?
To your first question, yes. To your second question, no. They used Grok for that, and it picked out a school to target.
> but it actually seems like a textbook designation
How can it be a textbook designation when designating a US company as a supply chain risk is unprecedented? So many actions under the Trump administration are unprecedented it starts to feel like the norm.
No other administration (Republican or Democrat) would do this. The DoD didn’t have a problem using Anthropic’s models during the raid on Venezuela and early on in the war with Iran.
Anthropic says to the former Fox News host it doesn’t want its models used for domestic surveillance or in kill situations without a human in the loop; all of a sudden they're a supply chain risk?
Seems obviously political.
>Anthropic says to the former Fox News host it doesn’t want its models used for domestic surveillance...
Lol, do as we say not as we do!
>In addition to monitoring activists in the vicinity of Anthropic executives and keeping tabs on protests near physical Anthropic assets, the firm is also implementing a “pre-crime” approach, attempting to predict incidents before they happen.
https://prospect.org/2026/09/09/anthropic-artificial-intelli...
except it's also stipulating that the paper supplier upon which the orders are signed also cant use anthropic. or the table maker. even though the AI helping make sleeker paper and tables has nothing to do with deciding what to bomb (analogy breaking down lol)
and trump admin originally went WAY further.
they originally said the pen, paper, table etc suppliers cant use anthropic even for products and subsidiaries that have nothing to do with their govt work; far beyond the supply chain of the pen (bomb). Mega Corp Pepsi Co Taco Bell Inc. LLC -> Staples > Pen Co. Sure pen co might be reasonabale. But telling taco bell they cant have claude help expand the baja-blast-radius is way too far. that would be just like secondary sanctions.
iirc there are 2 court cases. one ruled the original order was too broad and i think that still stands? so at least it's narrowed slightly to just the immediate supply chain?
but ianal
> The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary
I.e. Anthrophic cannot be trusted to honour a contract.
Who'd have guessed?
In almost any case I am inclined to trust entity not trump or trumps government. So is true in this case, where they pissed their pants at anthropic simply making a proposal and decided to use overwhelming government force against it. I will leave you to decide who you consider more trustworthy, Trump or Anthropic.
Using Claude for working on the refrigerators at the commissary is not a supply chain risk. You're just making stuff up.
Anthropic's red lines were 'no fully autonomous AI kill chains' and 'no domestic mass surveillance'. Those are clearly not national-security or DoD functions in the first place, so why would they be in any way objectionable?
Do you think a private company should be able to accumulate enough wealth and power to dictate policy to the US federal government?
I think a private company of any size should be able to offer its products on whatever terms they choose. If the military doesn't like those terms, they're free to do business elsewhere.
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You mean like pharmaceutical companies refusing to supply chemicals for lethal injection?
There are already several private companies that have this, eg. Apple has specific exemptions from tariffs on smartphones, computers, and semiconductors that they got by paying off Trump and promising to make their iPhone glass in Kentucky:
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/tariff-exemptions-are-bi...
https://www.warren.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/doc/l...
The correct mental model for the U.S. federal government right now is not an omnipotent democratic overseer for economic activity, but rather as just one firm that negotiates directly with other major firms for legitimization and legal protection. Their power is likely to decline further, as is the value of "legitimization", as technological developments erode the military's monopoly on physical force. Interesting times ahead - historically tech transitions like this lead to a splintering of state legitimacy and then a reorganization under new forms of governance.
Somebody clearly has to
Its not dictating policy. Any company of any size should be able to set any contract they want with the government or any other party.
i agree. by nature a lease is more risky than the military having its own model.
however anthropic also believes it is some kind of entity unto itself so it is not at all reliable.
Antropic: "We don't want our AIs to be used by the Army to do yucky Army things!"
Army: "OK, we will make sure not to use your AIs"
Antropic: "How dare you! We are suing! We intended for you to keep using it but do only what we want!"
Army: "..."
They didn't want their tech to be used to, I don't know, blow up a school with 120 children. But did want to allow other kinds of usage. Is that so weird?
[delayed]
They weren't against military use of their AI. They were against using it to kill American citizens without oversight or mass surveil Americans.
> They were against using it to kill American citizens
No, they were against using it to kill people without oversight. I hope nobody thinks that there's a difference between murdering American citizens and murdering people.
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...I suggest you read about what actually happened:
Anthropic: "We'll sell you access to our AI as long as you don't use it for war crimes or mass surveillance."
DoD: "Ok, deal."
...time passes...
DoD: "Wait, no, we want to be able to use it for war crimes too."
Anthropic: "Too late, you agreed already, and we won't sign a contract for that. You can keep using it for everything we agreed to."
DoD: "Change the terms or we will destroy your business."
Anthropic: "No."
DoD then signs contracts with OpenAI and Google that permit them to commit war crimes and mass surveillance as long as they get legal cover, and proceeds to apply as much leverage as it can to destroy Anthropic's business.
----
And for the record, Anthropic agreed to all "yucky Army things" usage that was an extension of past yucky Army things, they just did not agree to a new class of yucky Army things: namely, fully autonomous killbots. Even there, it was only "not yet, it's not ready". Your whole comment is a gross mischaracterization.
I quit using ChatGPT entirely over this incident, and that's not because I find Anthropic's position to be saintly. They agreed to a contract where the DoD could and in practice is using their AI for committing war crimes.
> textbook designation.
Hardly. I invite you to [read the opinion][1], particularly the great pains the majority spends on wrangling the definition of the word "manipulate."
Basically, [FASCSA][2] says to denote a company is a "supply chain risk," the govt has to meet the law's rigorous definition of what a "significant" risk actually is. That definition contains a catch-all "or otherwise manipulate the function" of the thing at hand (in this case, Claude) at the very end.
The govt's whole argument is "Well Anthropic has admitted that it can technically "manipulate" the response, therefore its a significant risk, therefore we designate it as such."
The dissent gives an analogy:
> A library might post a sign saying, “Do not shout, loudly talk on the phone, play music, or otherwise disturb others.” The common understanding would be that the rule bans bringing a boom-box into the reading room with the volume turned on high but not listening to music with headphones set at a modest sound level—even though both constitute “playing music.”
It is as if the govt argued "ah ah, Anthropic played music on their headphones, they broke the rules! We therefore have the authority to ban them" and the majority insanely agrees. It is clear to anyone with basic reading comprehension that the "manipulate" clause is supposed to continue the idea of malicious or subversive manipulation that the whole section entails. The hand-waving the majority uses gives the whole game away.
[1]: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=000001a0-d91e-d276-aff6-f97f3...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECURE_Technology_Act