In a significant development in the intersection of technology and defense, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is slated to engage in discussions with Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, this Tuesday. Notably, Anthropic stands out as the sole artificial intelligence firm that has yet to integrate its technology into a new internal network for the U.S. military.
Anthropic, renowned for its chatbot Claude, has opted not to provide comments regarding the upcoming meeting. However, Amodei has publicly voiced his ethical apprehensions concerning the unregulated deployment of AI by the government. His concerns emphasize the potential risks associated with fully autonomous weaponry and AI-driven mass surveillance systems that could potentially monitor and suppress public dissent.
A defense official, speaking anonymously as they were not authorized to make public statements, confirmed the scheduled meeting between Hegseth and Amodei. This dialogue highlights the broader discourse surrounding AI’s role in national security, especially regarding its use in critical scenarios involving lethal capabilities, sensitive data, and government oversight.
Hegseth’s meeting with Anthropic’s CEO is particularly timely, coinciding with his resolve to eliminate what he describes as a “woke culture” within the military. This reflects a broader examination of how emerging technologies are integrated into defense strategies and the ethical implications therein.
In a reflective essay last month, Amodei articulated his concerns, stating, “A powerful AI analyzing billions of conversations from millions of individuals could assess public opinion, identify emerging disloyalty, and neutralize it before it escalates.” This perspective underscores the significant ethical considerations as AI becomes increasingly entwined with national security operations.
Currently, Anthropic holds the distinction of being the only AI company approved for use in classified military networks, setting a precedent in the ongoing dialogue about AI’s future in military applications.
The Pentagon announced last summer that it was awarding defense contracts to four AI companies — Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. Each contract is worth up to $200 million.
Anthropic was the first AI company to get approved for classified military networks, where it works with partners like Palantir. The other three companies, for now, are only operating in unclassified environments.
By early this year, Hegseth was highlighting only two of them: xAI and Google.
The defense secretary said in a January speech at Musk’s space flight company, SpaceX, in South Texas that he was shrugging off any AI models “that won’t allow you to fight wars.”
Hegseth said his vision for military AI systems means that they operate “without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications,” before adding that the Pentagon’s “AI will not be woke.”
In January, Hegseth said Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok would join the Pentagon network, called GenAI.mil. The announcement came days after Grok — which is embedded into X, the social media network owned by Musk — drew global scrutiny for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent.
OpenAI announced in early February that it, too, would join the military’s secure AI platform, enabling service members to use a custom version of ChatGPT for unclassified tasks.
Anthropic calls itself more safety-minded
Anthropic has long pitched itself as the more responsible and safety-minded of the leading AI companies, ever since its founders quit OpenAI to form the startup in 2021.
The uncertainty with the Pentagon is putting those intentions to the test, according to Owen Daniels, associate director of analysis and fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
“Anthropic’s peers, including Meta, Google and xAI, have been willing to comply with the department’s policy on using models for all lawful applications,” Owens said. “So the company’s bargaining power here is limited, and it risks losing influence in the department’s push to adopt AI.”
In the AI craze that followed the release of ChatGPT, Anthropic closely aligned with President Joe Biden’s administration in volunteering to subject its AI systems to third-party scrutiny to guard against national security risks.
Amodei, the CEO, has warned of AI’s potentially catastrophic dangers while rejecting the label that he’s an AI “doomer.” He argued in the January essay that “we are considerably closer to real danger in 2026 than we were in 2023″ but that those risks should be managed in a “realistic, pragmatic manner.”
Anthropic has been at odds with the Trump administration
This would not be the first time Anthropic’s advocacy for stricter AI safeguards has put it at odds with the Trump administration. Anthropic needled chipmaker Nvidia publicly, criticizing Trump’s proposals to loosen export controls to enable some AI computer chips to be sold in China. The AI company, however, remains a close partner with Nvidia.
The Trump administration and Anthropic also have been on opposite sides of a lobbying push to regulate AI in U.S. states.
Trump’s top AI adviser, David Sacks, accused Anthropic in October of “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.”
Sacks made the remarks on X in response to an Anthropic co-founder, Jack Clark, writing about his attempt to balance technological optimism with “appropriate fear” about the steady march toward more capable AI systems.
Anthropic hired a number of ex-Biden officials soon after Trump’s return to the White House, but it’s also tried to signal a bipartisan approach. The company recently added Chris Liddell, a former White House official from Trump’s first term, to its board of directors.
The Pentagon-Anthropic debate is reminiscent of an uproar several years ago when some tech workers objected to their companies’ participation in Project Maven, a Pentagon drone surveillance program. While some workers quit over the project and Google itself dropped out, the Pentagon’s reliance on drone surveillance has only increased.
Similarly, “the use of AI in military contexts is already a reality and it is not going away,” Owens said.
“Some contexts are lower stakes, including for back-office work, but battlefield deployments of AI entail different, higher-stakes risks,” he said, referring to the use of lethal force or weapons like nuclear arms. “Military users are aware of these risks and have been thinking about mitigation for almost a decade.”
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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
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