AI firm drops key safety pledge as Pentagon dispute drags on

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made Anthropic an offer it may not be able to refuse. The Defense Department and the AI firm held a meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday, where the government tried to compel the house of Claude to lift some restrictions on military use of its tech. However, recent changes to the company's safety policy suggest it may be willing to be more flexible than it's letting on. 

The Pentagon's unhappiness with Anthropic has been in the news since the end of last month, when Reuters reported that the two were clashing over safeguards that would prevent the DoD from using Anthropic's AI to autonomously target weapons without human intervention and to conduct domestic surveillance within the United States. 

The Register has confirmed with individuals on both sides of the discussion that a meeting between Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and ...