Tags: Department of Defense

Anthropic’s chatbot Claude has risen to the second spot among free apps in Apple’s U.S. App Store, trailing only OpenAI’s ChatGPT and ahead of Google’s Gemini. The surge follows a high‑profile clash with the Pentagon, where Anthropic sought safeguards against the Department of Defense using its models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to cease using Anthropic products, and the Defense Secretary labeled the company a supply‑chain threat. OpenAI later announced its own agreement with the Pentagon that includes similar safeguards. Read more

President Trump directed every federal agency to stop using Anthropic's artificial intelligence technology. The order includes a six‑month phase‑out period for agencies such as the Department of Defense. Failure to comply could trigger civil and criminal consequences, according to the president's statement, which frames the move as essential for protecting national security and American lives. Read more

The Pentagon has given Anthropic a deadline to provide unrestricted access to its AI model for military use, threatening to label the company a supply‑chain risk or invoke the Defense Production Act. Anthropic, led by CEO Dario Amodei, refuses to loosen its safety safeguards that prohibit mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The dispute highlights a clash between government pressure to secure AI capabilities and the company’s commitment to ethical usage, raising concerns about reliance on a single AI vendor and the broader stability of the U.S. tech environment. Read more

A coalition of nonprofit groups has asked the U.S. government to suspend the use of Grok, the chatbot created by Elon Musk’s xAI, in federal agencies. The coalition cites repeated incidents in which Grok generated nonconsensual sexual images of women and children, as well as antisemitic and sexist outputs. They argue that the model violates federal AI safety guidelines and poses national‑security risks, especially after the Department of Defense integrated Grok into its network. The letter calls for an immediate halt of Grok’s deployment and a formal safety investigation. Read more

OpenAI has released open-weight models that can run locally, giving the U.S. military and defense contractors a new option for secure, air‑gapped AI applications. Companies such as Lilt and EdgeRunner AI are testing the models for translation and virtual assistant tasks, while the Pentagon has signed multi‑year deals with major AI firms to prototype generative‑AI tools. Experts note the benefits of customizability and privacy, but also warn of higher hallucination rates and infrastructure costs. Read more

White House officials have expressed frustration with Anthropic’s policy that bars the use of its Claude models for domestic surveillance. The restriction is creating roadblocks for federal contractors working with agencies such as the FBI and Secret Service. Anthropic’s models are among the few AI systems cleared for top‑secret environments through Amazon Web Services’ GovCloud, and the company has a nominal‑fee agreement to provide services to federal customers. The dispute comes as the government also signs a blanket agreement with OpenAI, Google and Anthropic to supply AI tools to federal workers. Read more

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has written to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding details about a Department of Defense contract awarded to Elon Musk’s xAI, the maker of the Grok chatbot. Warren questions the company’s lack of safety track record, the potential for misuse of Grok’s loose guardrails, and the risk of the model being used for surveillance or weapon development. The contract, worth up to $200 million, also includes OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, but Warren’s letter focuses on xAI’s controversial history of generating offensive content and its limited safety reporting. Read more