Big Tech’s Moment of Truth on AI Safety

(Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat – Just Security) The Pentagon has given leading AI company Anthropic until Feb. 27 to abandon its AI safety limits or face extraordinary punitive measures. If Anthropic refuses—as it has signaled it will—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act, use the government’s contracting power to blacklist Anthropic from the defense ecosystem, and turn to Google, OpenAI, or xAI to fill the gap. Those companies have now been handed an unexpected choice: step in and profit or stand with Anthropic and demonstrate that the industry’s safety commitments are more than marketing. There is only one right answer. Anthropic has so far declined the Defense Department’s request that its flagship model, Claude, be made available for all “lawful purposes,” an expansive formulation that could encompass applications such as mass domestic surveillance and the operation of fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic has insisted on retaining contractual limits regarding those two uses. Defense officials have pushed back, arguing that those constraints are incompatible with national security needs. – Big Tech’s Moment of Truth on AI Safety