Anthropic wins court battle against Pentagon AI safety restrictions
US District Judge Rita Lin, a Biden appointee, ruled that the Pentagon’s decision to designate Anthropic as a supply-chain risk was “illegal and baseless”, according to a 59-page order. She said the government could not use national security concerns as a justification for retaliating against companies over their policy positions. Anthropic said the designation was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military’s previous praise for Claude, its artificial intelligence model.
A US judge Thursday blocked the Pentagon from blacklisting Anthropic as a national security supply-chain risk, dealing a setback to the US military in its high-stakes dispute with the maker of Claude over restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence in warfare. The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by Anthropic in a California federal court challenging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to designate the AI company a national security supply-chain risk. The designation restricted Anthropic’s access to certain military contracts and marked the first public designation of a US company as a supply-chain risk under a government procurement law intended to protect military systems from foreign sabotage. Anthropic had resisted allowing the military to use its Claude AI models for US surveillance or autonomous weapons. The company has argued that current AI systems are not sufficiently reliable for safe use in autonomous weapons and has opposed domestic surveillance on rights grounds. Anthropic welcomed the court’s decision, saying it remained committed to working with the US government on national security applications of AI. The Justice Department disputed Anthropic’s claims, arguing that the company’s refusal to remove restrictions on the military use of its AI models could create uncertainty for the Pentagon over how Claude could be used. The government also warned that such uncertainty could risk disabling military systems during operations.