Chinese Communist Party

Dario Amodei Statement: Anthropic Refuses DoD Demands to Remove Safeguards on Mass Surveillance and Autonomous Weapons

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has published a public statement disclosing that the U.S. Department of War (formerly Defense) has demanded Anthropic accede to 'any lawful use' of Claude and remove safeguards in two specific areas: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic refuses, citing democratic values and current AI reliability limitations, despite threats of contract termination, a 'supply chain risk' designation, and potential invocation of the Defense Production Act. The statement confirms Claude is already extensively deployed across DoD and intelligence community systems for mission-critical applications including intelligence analysis, operational planning, and cyber operations. Anthropic states it will facilitate a smooth transition if offboarded, but will not remove the two contested safeguards.