Anthropic is standing up to the US Department of War and refusing to remove AI autonomous weapon and mass surveillance safeguards: 'We cannot in good conscience accede to their request'

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has released a statement on the company's website regarding its months-long dispute with the US Department of War over the use of its AI technology. In the statement. Amodei outlines his refusal to remove safeguards that prevent its AI products from being used for fully autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance purposes.

"I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries," the statement begins. "Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community.

"However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values," the statement continues. "Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now:

"Mass domestic surveillance. We support the use of AI for lawful foreign intelligence and counterintelligence missions. But using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values.

"Fully autonomous weapons. Partially autonomous weapons, like those used today in Ukraine, are vital to the defense of democracy. Even fully autonomous weapons... may prove critical for our national defense. But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk."

"The Department of War has stated they will only contract with AI companies who accede to 'any lawful use' and remove safeguards in the cases mentioned above," Amodei continues.

"They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a 'supply chain risk'—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal."

"Regardless, these threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request", the statement concludes. "We remain ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States."

In response, US undersecretary of defense Emil Michael said: "It’s a shame that @DarioAmodei is a liar and has a God-complex.

"He wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military and is ok putting our nation’s safety at risk. The @DeptofWar will ALWAYS adhere to the law but not bend to whims of any one for-profit tech company."

Anthropic currently has a contract with the US department of defense worth up to $200 million. In response to the recent dispute, over 300 Google and OpenAI employees have signed an open letter in support of Anthropic's position. The letter ends:

"We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War's current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight."

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