US court lets Pentagon keep Anthropic blacklist in place

A US appeals court has allowed the Pentagon to maintain its blacklist of Anthropic, marking a temporary win for the US Department of Defence in an ongoing legal battle.

The decision, issued by judges in Washington, D.C., rejects Anthropic’s request to pause its designation as a national security supply-chain risk. The case centres on the Anthropic blacklist and whether the move was justified or retaliatory.

In light of the decision delivered by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the blacklisting of Anthropic will stay as it is while the case proceeds. 

The company, whose product line includes the Claude artificial intelligence assistant, asserts that the decision made by the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, is beyond his jurisdiction.

According to the company, its products have been blacklisted due to the refusal to strip them of their guardrails that would enable their application in military surveillance operations and their use in autonomous weapons. This designation will have significant consequences for the firm.

The US Department of Justice has defended the decision, saying it is contractually motivated and not related to Claude AI's position on the safety of artificial intelligence. 

The acting attorney general Todd Blanche welcomed the ruling as a success for military command and control, saying that defence considerations cannot be imposed by private companies.

According to court filings, the government argued that restrictions placed on Claude AI could disrupt military operations or create uncertainty in critical systems.

This controversy between Anthropic and the Pentagon's blacklist is among two legal suits filed against the government by the firm. In another suit, a California judge recently overturned a Pentagon directive, implying that it was retaliatory.