{"id":9042,"date":"2026-02-27T21:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ai-workers-pentagon-anthropic\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T21:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:01:08","slug":"ai-workers-pentagon-anthropic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ai-workers-pentagon-anthropic\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Workers, and Even CEOs, Suddenly Turning Against the Trump Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Trump administration has a new rival in its ongoing feud with AI company Anthropic: Silicon Valley\u2019s rank-and-file.<\/p>\n

Newly reported by Bloomberg<\/em><\/a>, a coalition of labor groups representing over 700,000 workers from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have made a formal ask of their corporations to join Anthropic in its refusal to comply with recent demands from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are speaking out today because the Pentagon is demanding that Anthropic abandon two major safety guardrails for Claude, which is the only frontier AI model currently deployed in classified Department of War operations,\u201d reads the letter<\/a>. \u201cWe are writing to urge our own companies to also refuse to comply should they or the frontier labs they invest in enter into further contracts with the Pentagon.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, the Pentagon issued an ultimatum to Anthropic to drop two key guardrails regarding the use of its AI system, Claude: one barring \u201cmass domestic surveillance,\u201d and another prohibiting the Pentagon from using its tech to build AI-powered weapons that can kill without a human operator.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon had previously agreed to uphold both guardrails when it entered a contract<\/a> worth up to $200 million to license Claude for classified use in July of 2025. But following a series of back-and-forth meetings<\/a>, including discussion of using the company\u2019s AI in a nuclear strike scenario<\/a>, the Pentagon ordered Anthropic to allow unfettered access to Claude or face its wrath.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow the Pentagon reacts remains to be seen, but we know they will rapidly seek to onboard other models without these guardrails in place, regardless of whether they try to force Anthropic to comply,\u201d the worker\u2019s letter urges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any tech company caves to the Pentagon\u2019s demands, War Secretary Pete Hegseth will have won the ability to surveil our communities \u2014 here and abroad \u2014 en masse, at an unprecedented level,\u201d it continues. \u201cHe will have the power to build and deploy AI-powered drones that kill people without the approval of any human.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the face of mounting pressure from arguably the most powerful military entity in the world, Anthropic\u2019s CEO Dario Amodei has stood defiant. In a statement<\/a> published on Anthropic\u2019s website, Amodei described the Pentagon\u2019s increasingly desperate stance: \u201cthey have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a \u2018supply chain risk\u2019\u2026 and\u00a0to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards\u2019 removal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese latter two threats are\u00a0inherently contradictory,\u201d Amodei continued: \u201cone labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Either way, he says Anthropic \u201ccannot in good conscience accede to their request,\u201d the deadline for which is 5:01pm on Friday, February 27th.<\/p>\n

The legion of tech workers and Amodei gained a particularly strange bedfellow: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has become something of a nemesis to Amodei as the rivalry between the two companies has heated up. But swallowing his pride \u2014 or perhaps sensing a PR opportunity \u2014 Altman sent a memo to staff<\/a> on Thursday essentially siding with Anthropic against Hegseth and the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201c[R]egardless of how we got here, this is no longer just an issue between Anthropic and the [Pentagon]; this is an issue for the whole industry and it is important to clarify our stance,\u201d\u00a0he wrote. \u201cWe have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions. These are our main red lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zooming out, the rift draws attention to the growing contradiction between Anthropic\u2019s dedication to ethics<\/a> and its contract with the Department of Defense. While the $200 million contract is financially immaterial to the $380 billion Anthropic, allowing the Pentagon unlimited access to Claude could come at substantial reputational and legal risk, especially as the United Nations has begun efforts<\/a> to ban lethal autonomous weapons on a global scale.<\/p>\n

In a sense, the Pentagon seems to rely on Anthropic more than the other way around. According to Defense One<\/em>,<\/a> it would take the Trump administration three months or more to replace Claude. Still, there\u2019s no accounting for ever-unpredictable Trump administration. Case in point, as the deadline loomed, Trump himself weighted in with a vitriol-laden post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,\u201d he fumigated on Truth Social<\/a>. \u201cTheir selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic\u2019s technology,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe don\u2019t need it, we don\u2019t want it, and will not do business with them again!\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Trump conceded, the government will need a six-month period to phase out Anthropic products.<\/p>\n

More on Anthropic: <\/strong>Anthropic CEO Says Company No Longer Sure Whether Claude Is Conscious<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post AI Workers, and Even CEOs, Suddenly Turning Against the Trump Administration<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Trump administration has a new rival in its ongoing feud with AI company Anthropic: Silicon Valley\u2019s rank-and-file. Newly reported by Bloomberg, a coalition of labor groups representing over 700,000…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3841,4820,3906],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-ethics","category-military","category-science-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}