Anthropic sues Pentagon blacklisting over AI use restrictions: Here's why

The Anthropic-Pentagon rivalry escalates as an AI research and safety company on Monday filed a lawsuit to block the Pentagon from placing it on a national security blacklist, escalating the artificial intelligence lab’s high-stakes battle with the U.S. military over usage restrictions on its technology.

Anthropic said in its lawsuit that the designation was unlawful and violated its free speech and due process rights. 

“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful. The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech," Anthropic said.

The Pentagon on Thursday imposed a formal supply-chain risk designation on Anthropic, limiting use of a technology that two sources said was being used for military operations in Iran. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic after the startup refused to remove guardrails against using its AI for autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance.

AI and National Security:

The dispute is notable in part because Anthropic aggressively courted the U.S. national security apparatus before most other AI companies. 

CEO Dario Amodei has said he isn't opposed to AI-driven weapons but believes the current generation of AI technology isn't good enough to be accurate.

The designation poses a big threat to Anthropic’s business with the government, and the outcome could shape how other AI companies negotiate restrictions on military use of their technology'

"This could have a ripple impact for Anthropic and Claude potentially on the enterprise front over the coming months as some enterprises could go pencils down on Claude deployments while all this gets settled in the courts," said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

The two sides had been in increasingly contentious talks over those limitations for months, while Trump, in a social media post, also ordered the entire government to quit using Claude.

Supply chain Risk:

In a second lawsuit filed on Monday, Anthropic said the government had also designated it a supply chain risk under a broader ‌law that could lead to Anthropic being blacklisted across the entire civilian government.

The Pentagon said on Feb. 27 that it would declare Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. It officially informed Anthropic of that designation on March 3.

Trump's and Hegseth’s actions came after months of talks with Anthropic over whether the company’s policies could constrain military action and shortly after Amodei met with Hegseth in hopes of reaching a deal. 

Anthropic said even the best AI models were not reliable enough for fully autonomous weapons and that using them for that purpose would be dangerous. The company also drew a red line on domestic surveillance of Americans, calling that a violation of fundamental rights.

OpenAI:

The Defense Department signed agreements worth up to $200 million each with major AI labs in the past year, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI announced a deal to use its technology in the Defense Department network shortly after Hegseth moved to blacklist Anthropic.