Hegseth & Co. Melt Down as Anthropic Refuses to Bend to Pentagon

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon officials took to X to whine about their failed deal with AI company Anthropic, whose Claude program is already deeply entrenched into the military.

The deal fell apart around Tuesday after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to lift his restrictions on the Pentagon using his Claude AI program for mass surveillance and unmanned weapons systems.

“The Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement. This narrative is fake and being peddled by leftists in the media,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote Thursday on X. “Here’s what we’re asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s model for all lawful purposes. This is a simple, common-sense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk. We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions. They have until 5:01 PM ET on Friday to decide. Otherwise, we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk for DOW.”

“Anthropic hates Western Civilization,” billionaire Elon Musk posted, and Hegseth reposted.

Parnell is being facetious. The Defense Department’s primary demand to Anthropic was that they remove the contractual safeguards that stoppedClaude from being used for mass surveillance or unmanned weapons systems. And why would anyone over the age of 25 believe that the U.S. government—including the Pentagon—isn’t interested in mass surveillance and autonomous weapons?

“Ok, if that’s true, then the Pentagon should affirmatively agree that it’s use of AI will not include autonomous weapon development OR mass surveillance,” civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo wrote back to Parnell. “That would make this ‘fake news’ response a lot more believable, Sean.”

“So weird. Anthropic says ‘you guys can use claude all you want, as long as you aren’t doing A or B,’” another user wrote. “You say ‘we’re not gonna do A or B, that’s fake leftist news. Anyway the deal saying we can’t do A or B is unacceptable. We need a deal that allows us to do A and B.’”

The Pentagon is currently searching for “alternatives” to Claude.