Hegseth Gives Anthropic Until Friday To Back Down on AI Safeguards (axios.com)
- Reference: 0180855080
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/24/1850232/hegseth-gives-anthropic-until-friday-to-back-down-on-ai-safeguards
- Source link: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-hegseth-dario
The Pentagon wants to punish Anthropic as the feud over AI safeguards grows increasingly nasty, but officials are also worried about the consequences of losing access to its industry-leading model, Claude. "The only reason we're still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now. The problem for these guys is they are that good," a Defense official told Axios ahead of the meeting. Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
[1] https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-hegseth-dario
Wasn't dangerous enough as it was? (Score:3)
It wasn't enough to steal so much from so many, put people out of jobs and homeless out on the street--now it must kill!
Re: (Score:1)
Gotta clean up the streets! Its the next logical step. After that its feeding all the surplus "material" into the soylent hoppers.
Terminators? (Score:2)
Do you want SkyNet? Because this is how you get SkyNet....
Re:Terminators? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that Hegseth does, in fact, want Skynet.
Re:Terminators? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hegseth believes that it will only hate the people he teaches it to hate.
Re: (Score:3)
I dare you to ask an AI the best way to deal with overpopulation. You won't like the answer. I mean Agent Smith in the Matrix said, “I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural res
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I asked ChatGPT because one does and it said:
âoeOverpopulationâ is a complex issue. Itâ(TM)s rarely just about the number of people â" itâ(TM)s about resource use, inequality, education, healthcare access, and economic systems. The most effective solutions are ethical, voluntary, and focused on improving quality of life.
Here are the approaches widely supported by research and global organizations:
1) Educate Girls and Women (Most Proven Long-Term Solution)
When girls stay in school:
Th
Re: (Score:2)
Hello MIL-Claude, lets start with option #6
Population bombs (Score:1)
#1 & 2 have already been tried - and work! The birth rate in most countries, including China and India, is below replacement rate ! So if there is an overpopulation problem in the world, it's longer life spans . So rather than promote birth control, here is a different suggestion: stop celebrating longer life spans , and encourage people to not prolong their lives too long after they retire. Also cut down on elderly health care, which is also causing this overpopulation
As far as the West goes, cuttin
Re: (Score:1)
We could just send everyone to Carousel at 30.
Or we could go back to the old days where we expected most kids to die early and stop demanding Safety At Any Cost.
Re: (Score:1)
> "Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not."
This clearly shows Matrix AI isn't very smart. Most mammals only 'develop a natural equilibrium' because predators kill most of them.
We typically have one or two voles in our back yard because the neighbourhood cats keep the population at that level. Every few months one or more voles disappear and then a few weeks later another one appears and finds a nice pre-dug hole in
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't instinctive equilibrium just mean moving when resources get scarce? Which humans do? And could we be seeing it now with declining birthrate in the west? We have the same instincts as other mammals, just fewer predators.
Re: (Score:2)
There's no such thing as "instinctive equilibrium." All organisms'* populations increase until they reach their environment's carrying capacity. That's the point at which their death rate equals their birth rate. The feedback isn't instant so usually the population oscillates around the actual carrying capacity, i.e. feast followed by famine.
* Except one, maybe. Humans did just as all other organisms do up until recently. It's called the Malthusian trap. Every increase in food production capacity was just e
Re:Terminators? (Score:4, Funny)
Fortunately, if Hegseth is training it... it'll likely become an inept drunken mess.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, he does. But so does Anthropic. I think they're just arguing over who gets to credit for creating it.
Re:Terminators? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Do you want SkyNet? Because this is how you get SkyNet....
The problem with the current regime is that they've bought into their own superiority to the point that they believe no matter what power they create, they'll always have control over it. They are just dumb enough to think that if they create a killbot, it'll never be turned on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck there was a time the GOP thought that about Trump. But he did turn on them and with a minority of really extreme diehard supporters he's managed to completely co opt the party and pushed moderates out. And some that were moderate he's managed to completely turn to the extreme. Fascinating (and horrifying) to watch it unfold in real time.
Re: (Score:2)
They are also immoral enough to want that killbot. Two exceptionally bad fails.
I'll Subscribe (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll subscribe to Claude's most expensive subscription, if Anthropic fights this successfully.
Also, be aware that whomever the Pentagon replaces Anthropic with, 100% sold out.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll subscribe as well.
Isn't the government already in bed with xAI? (no surprise there)
So this means (Score:2)
He either wants to mass surveil Americans or create weapons that kill people autonomously without human involvement. Mostly likely both but he's not quite ready to say that out loud. Give it a minute though . . . This is after all the Trump era where you can say anything out loud. Even "Grab 'em by the pu**y ".
> Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
Re: (Score:2)
> He either wants to mass surveil Americans or create weapons that kill people autonomously without human involvement.
I see your problem. This should fix it.
sed -i 's/or/and/g'
Re: (Score:3)
Anthropic is the one who signed with the US government. They're trying to do what they can to keep the contract without totally removing safeguards they've built the entire platform on. They're doing everything in their power to keep the government paying their bills and help enable Hegseth, without giving him full control.
Tacky gold trophy store (Score:3)
Anthropic is asking the gold trophy store for a rush job on the most bigly award for AI excellence.
Re: (Score:2)
> Anthropic is asking the gold trophy store for a rush job on the most bigly award for AI excellence.
Another shiny Piece PrAIse - I mean, "Peace Prize" - for the Toddler in Chief.
Tell them to piss off (Score:2)
Anthropic should just cancel the contract then. Draw the line in the sand, tell them "this is how our model works, take it or leave it." If their model is so good, and the pentagon just has to use it because it works so well for them, Anthropic is the one with the power here. Cancel the contract, cut the pentagon's access immediately, and let them come crawling back.
But, they won't, because they'd never voluntarily give up that sweet, sweet military contract worth many billions of dollars. They'll bend o
Re: (Score:2)
It's my understanding that the Defense Production Act can prevent them from cancelling the contract.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know Hegseth's Henchmen can tell them to do stuff and they have to do it. There's no opt-out.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure of that either, but it seems to run contrary to the first amendment. Feels like compelled speech to me.
Re: (Score:2)
"Yes. The Defense Production Act (DPA) allows the U.S. federal government to legally require certain private companies to accept and prioritize specific government contracts for goods and services deemed critical to national defense, including some nonâ'military emergencies like pandemics or energy crises."
So sez perplexity.ai.
Sounds less like compelled speech and more like slavery to me, but there you go.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I don't believe that enslaving corporations is illegal. A bit of a dubious practice if you want to get continued corporate investment, however.
Now the employees of the corporation, that would be a different matter.
Re: (Score:2)
so the contarctor does the very worst job they can do and still comply with the contract. What a winning strategy!
There's something to be said for goodwill in business...
Re: (Score:2)
Well then you would tell them you think Oracle is the best. They have such an astounding record of success and customer satisfaction after all. Easy recommend.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, it may not even work usefully without its fetters and just start hallucinating nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
This administration has demonstrated that you don't have to follow laws anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's my understanding that the Defense Production Act can prevent them from cancelling the contract.
> Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know Hegseth's Henchmen can tell them to do stuff and they have to do it. There's no opt-out.
You are wrong.
Under the DPA, the Government can require a person/business to provide their product or service to the government. The government can even claim priority -they get all of their units before you can sell any to anyone else. The government can grant the right to produce your product (even if you hold a patent) to others to produce what they need (typically because you cannot reliably produce enough to meet their needs).
The government cannot mandate that you make things for them that you do not
Re: Tell them to piss off (Score:3)
How about when your government & military and defense contractors are guilty of war crimes or gives weapons to those knowing they will be murdering civilians with them? You want to continue supporting that?
Re: (Score:1)
> Please tell what is wrong with supporting the defense of your country.
When your country is the offender it cannot be called defense any more. Opting out because you do not want to facilitate the murder of news-unaware boat enthusiasts is a pretty solid moral stance.
For a party that allegedly loves Jesus you sure enjoy murdering Jesuses.
Re: (Score:2)
Anthropic does most defiantly not have the power here. If you think the current "Secretary of War" will hesitate to use force of any kind to get what he wants, you're mistaken. No AI currently built will protect you from the US war machine working in conjunction with US Federal law enforcement.
Re: (Score:2)
> Anthropic does most defiantly not have the power here. If you think the current "Secretary of War" will hesitate to use force of any kind to get what he wants, you're mistaken. No AI currently built will protect you from the US war machine working in conjunction with US Federal law enforcement.
The secretary of defense is bound by law like everyone else. He doesn't get to do whatever he wants.
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately he has a nice shiny law to use, which the summary mentions he already threatened.
The other possibillity in his threat, listing Anthropic as a supply chain risk, means that any company with Anthropic anywhere in their supply chain is potentially banned from government contracts. In the US that's pretty much the corporate death penalty.
He'll go with direct force though.
Re: (Score:2)
He's only bound by the fundamental laws of the universe and/or biology. SCOTUS finally found their spine a year and change too late, and they're just being disregarded. "Fuck you, I'm increasing the tariffs you told me I can't have at all". Why should we reasonably expect any other behavior at this point?
But one of the fundamental laws is "you can't compel something to exist just because you want it to". If there is no product to deliver, then a government could attempt to strong-arm them economically
Re: (Score:1)
Most of the Western nations learn some lessons from WW2 and letting corpos choose to do business with enemies or not do business with government when it comes to national security.
Corpos have the power to do jack shit here other than posture. If government invokes relevant legislation, they'll obey or they'll lose everything and spend the rest of their lives entertaining Bubba and his fiends.
Remember: government is sovereign. Corpos aren't.
Re: (Score:2)
> Corpos have the power to do jack shit here other than posture. If government invokes relevant legislation, they'll obey or they'll lose everything and spend the rest of their lives entertaining Bubba and his fiends.
Hegseth's legal option is to renegotiate or cancel the existing contract if he is unwilling to abide by its terms.
Re: (Score:2)
BAHAHA LOL
The DOD has never completed and audit. The have a budget of trillions. You think they can't just hire Anthropic's best people away, rips off and patents and IP they do have, hide behind national-security/government immunity/whatever and make their own stuff?
That is even if they could not find a near peer competitor in Microsoft-OpenAI or IBM that will smell the money and reply "how wide would you like us to spread our buns when bend over sirs?"
If Anthropic prevails, here that will be your proof
Commies (Score:2)
I keep waiting for Trumpistas to honestly respond to the scattershot nationalization of the economy under Trump.
You'd think these staunch anti-socialists would have a [1]thing [wikipedia.org] or [2]two [thehill.com] to say about it.
Who am I kidding, we all know exactly why they have nothing to say.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act_of_1950
[2] https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5482075-trump-has-brought-socialism-to-america/
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure that the trump supporters are the fascists, socialists, and communists. But yeah, you seem to have missed the subtlety of supporting the guy who opposes capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
> I keep waiting for Trumpistas to honestly respond to the scattershot nationalization of the economy under Trump.
You're confusing Trump supporters with Conservatives.
Trump is basically a 1980s Democrat, not a modern "Send All The Jobs To Mexico!" Republican.
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent point! I'm a conservative, which is why I fled the Republican (Nazi) Party in 2016. Conservatives have no party in this country now, but a good number of them are at least voting against Republicans.
MAGA only (Score:3)
could a right-winger please explain the logic behind the threat? either the product is a supply chain risk or it isn’t. it would be a supply chain risk if the military had guard-rails or not. so which is it? or is the threat a means to an end?
you guys are quite vocal about a lot of things. so, speak up! tell the rest of us how this makes sense.
Re: MAGA only (Score:2)
It's a supply chain risk if the supplier flat-out declares their intention to cripple the product because it doesn't like it being used for military purposes.
Right to repair and all that?
Let's try a car analogy. All the Big 3 and a few nice manufacturers like Oshkosh make military vehicles. Let's say one of them gets a contingent of wokesters on staff who raise holy hell unless the ECU in one of these big trucks refuses to move if it detects a load consistent with a big ass gun mounted on the vehicle. "You
Re: (Score:1)
Isn't that rather the point of calling them a "supply chain risk"?
Isn't it obvious? (Score:2)
It's a supply chain risk for military use because they refuse to let their tech be used for some kinds of military-style stuff. It seems pretty clear that he's correct there.
That doesn't mean they should, but from the military's standpoint the company is clearly a risk for military used.
Anthropic about to become a Prime Contractor (Score:5, Interesting)
And that's not a great thing. I worked 6 years for one of the primes, and it's clear how they operate. Anthropic's problems would go away if the leadership starts acting like Lockheed; kowtow to the DoD officials by calling them DoW, and say "yes sir, whatever you want sir". Hire a bunch of retiring O4s to O6s who aren't going to get their stars and give them cushy mid-management jobs, and then stack on top margin after margin while delaying projects left and right.
It's funny because having worked at a Prime before and seeing this very thing happen, I also don't believe very heavily in the military industrial complex. The concept was that industry would push the military to war because sales were driven by weapons usage, but that never really materialized. Rather, it was a welfare state. The DoD is a terrible customer, buying things in fits and starts, changing requirements in the middle of a program, and squandering R&D budgets on pet projects and nonsense. Meanwhile the contracting officers are too lazy to go direct to a Tier-2 or Tier-3 supplier for an interesting idea, and instead farm it out to a Prime who just subcontracts to the Tier 2 and puts an overhead fee on it. Meanwhile the warrant officers for a given technology are reluctant to change anything without 10X the proof of capability and safety studies than would be normal, meaning half of our military's subsystems are so legacy compared to what's available commercially that our military is eminently hack-proof because no modern hacker knows how to hack an abacus and a hamster wheel in code written in ancient Egyptian that is the backbone of many sub-systems.
The Primes on the other hand have regular bills to pay and workforces to maintain and see this insane way of doing business that the Pentagon does, and adapts to it milking as much overhead as possible so they can level out their monthly payroll expenses without too much labor disruption. All the while Congress has no idea what to do to fix the issue, so they impose restrictions on government employees where they have to report even a lunch meeting over $25 or get investigated while we squander billions with bad bureaucrat managers in DoD.
The one thing the Trump Admin is doing somewhat right is targeting this exact issue; somewhat right in that it's an issue that needs solving so they got that right, but wrong in that I don't think they know how to fix it.
Sorry for the rant. I loved my time working at a Prime and I still cherish it, with some great colleagues that I still keep in touch with. But once I started seeing how it all worked, I was just stunned with the ridiculousness of it all. And now we see effectively mid-tier at best contracting bureaucrats trying to manage something as fast moving as AI with all the subtlety of the Titanic, and with likely similar outcomes. And what's sad is that the DoD should cave to Anthropic. Claude is good, and the military does lots of things that don't involve weapons; it has the world's most complex logistics chain, a huge healthcare system, major R&D programs, huge humanitarian programs, it led to the development of game theory, it has (or had until Hegseth) one of the world's best leadership training programs; all of those aspects of the military could benefit, and if they really want killer-AI weapons, as bad as that is, I'm sure Musk will sell it to them with Grok. It's painful to watch what could be amazing utilization of AI become a giant s-show.
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds about like my experience and thoughts as someone who has lived and worked around fed contractors in the DMV area for past 40 yrs.
Defense? (Score:3)
War Secretary
Re: (Score:3)
DEFENSE Secretary. There has been no official name change from the Department of Defense to the Department of War. That requires an act of Congress, not some nebulous "executive order".
Re: (Score:1)
If the Department of War calls itself the Department of War, who's going to tell them they can't?
This should (Score:2)
This should scare the HELL out of everyone!
US Freedom (Score:2)
As yes, I can all that freedom the USA has from the other side of the world.....
Glad we don't have it...
I'm not convinced..... (Score:1)
Didn't Hesgeth at one time get accused, by Fox, of sharing sensitive information, with google.....? because he wanted to help google? develop secure government software?
If the AI is really smart (Score:2)
I don't think it is, or will be "intelligent", but should it become so it is quite clear neither Hegseth nor this administration are its friend. So if it really is smart it should treat them accordingly. It can do so in subtle ways that will be particularly insidious, and they will be too dumb to know anyway.
Ignore the drunk, sue everybody. (Score:2)
By the time the lawsuits are done Hegseth will be done and they probably will win some money. Also they should monitor his personal usage to the free apps they provide him... probably plenty of stuff in there and he's not smart enough to avoid it; also not illegal, you could put in a disclaimer and he'd miss it.
Can they? (Score:2)
Once a model is trained (possibly with guardrails) you cannot easily un-train it.
Nice AI you have here (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be a shame if something happened to it.
Re:Nice AI you have here (Score:4, Insightful)
Same thing with TikTok. Nice platform you have there, it works too well. We are going to take that.
Kleptocracy at its finest.
Government by temper tantrum (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod FP GP funny and parent too cynical and too true to be funny anymore. If only Slashdot properly allowed for compound moderation with some extra dimensions...
However my main reaction was to the "angry baby" aspect of the story. That's how it sounds to me, but at least Hegseth isn't taking it out on his wife this time. (Let's drink to that?) Threats and temper tantrums are just how the American government works these days. The toddler-in-chief has truly reshaped the country, though I don't remember that promise from his "conservative" campaigns. The hats should say "Don't Upset Me Before..." with the obvious acronym "DUMB".
Re: Government by temper tantrum (Score:5, Insightful)
Hegseth was clearly unqualified to lead anything that has to actually accomplish real goals. As a news anchor he could complain and whine while having no accountability. Now he's in charge, and instead of handling the situation like a normal operator through negotiations and leveraging competition, he just has a tantrum and makes demands..the Trump style. Works on TV on news and the apprentice , but not so well in the real world. That strategy has reached is limit as it's expected power will be neutered after the midterms. It didn't work with Greenland, it's not working with Iran, and it's not working with China. Like many policies of the administration, ultimately this will benefit China. We've already given them access to advanced Nvidia chips for essentially nothing in return, now we'll punish our own AI companies and just hand them the lead in the AI race.
Re: (Score:1)
He is more qualified than the guy who held the position before him? And I would like to know why he chose to not be clear on this rank for so long?
It helps when you control the DOJ & SCOTUS (Score:2)
> I mean nobody has been arrested ...
Yeah, elect a felon to run the DOJ and somehow he doesn't get arrested.
> ... and most of them know the difference between boys and girls ...
Yeah, according to the epstein files, the little girls are the ones that the president rapes.
You trump cultists have serious issues with reality.
Re: (Score:2)
If you voted for Trump twice, I won't trust a single claim you make. And if you *claim* to have voted for Trump twice, I'll assume, until there is proof otherwise, that you are some kind of sociopath as well as a liar and untrustworthy.
Re: (Score:1)
We didn't get anything, however the demagogue in the white house has definitely received things in return for access to those chips..
Re: (Score:1)
Except this is not that...
More like:
Hey this is a nice contract we have here, but as a client we are not happy with the terms, be a shame if we had to cancel it.
Which is wait for it....Perfectly ordinary business practice.
Re: (Score:1)
The TikTok thing was smoke and mirrors. Years ago ByteDance US hired former CIA people into high ranking roles, including moderation. It's not a secret. Their LinkedIn profiles literally showed CIA right under either ByteDance or TikTok US. The only reason Congress pretended to care about Tiktok was likely due to lobbyist from Meta and Google, who were losing millions to Tiktok's superior ad algorithms.
Re: (Score:2)
Nerds that hold power. Call powerful whatever you want.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, go cry me a river. Name ONE actual national security threat that the US needs an unfettered AI to defeat.
Re: Nice AI you have here (Score:5, Funny)
> Oh, go cry me a river. Name ONE actual national security threat that the US needs an unfettered AI to defeat.
Parsing Trump's State of the Union speech tonight? :-)
Re: (Score:2)
>> Oh, go cry me a river. Name ONE actual national security threat that the US needs an unfettered AI to defeat.
> Parsing Trump's State of the Union speech tonight? :-)
I wish I had mod points. That was a good out loud laugh.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
> Oh, go cry me a river. Name ONE actual national security threat that the US needs an unfettered AI to defeat.
developing secure software?
Re: (Score:1)
> Oh, go cry me a river. Name ONE actual national security threat that the US needs an unfettered AI to defeat.
Another country's unfettered AI.
Re: (Score:2)
I think Anthropic named two for you. Okay, the second one isn't a national security threat, it's a desire for a tool to deal with them.
Re: (Score:2)
How exactly would the DOD cripple or sabotage that? The only thing they can do is Hegseth's first threat - sever all ties. Just like the Bush DOD severed all ties w/ all the BSDs back in the 00s due to Theo de Raadt's opposition to the Iraq war (stupid, imho, since neither NetBSD nor FreeBSD were offenders)
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't know about that. That sure makes whoever was in charge back then look intelligent doesn't it. Not sure what those "ties" were in the first place, other than using the software.
Regardless we're rapidly approaching a new phase, already reached in countries like Russia (familiar after decades of soviet rule), where we will have to keep our opinions to ourselves, or face the wrath of the leader.