Defense tech enters a new era: the case of Anthropic and the DOD

According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, the Defense Department used Anthropic's Claude Ai, via its Palantir contract, to help with the attack on Venezuela and capture former President Nicolás Maduro. Photo illustration by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Defense technology often attracts people who are inclined to pay attention to the various stages of a normal technology’s lifecycle: its technical underpinnings and development; its relationship with existing techniques; the intended applications its development seeks to serve; and the process of testing and validating a system’s performance such that it is suitable for real-world deployment and operation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no exception.

Recent events indicate that this lens, by itself, is becoming inadequate for understanding the developmental trajectories and practical impacts of AI in U.S. defense. (Editor’s note: Forecast International, like Nextgov/FCW, is owned by GovExec.)

The dispute between Large Language Model ...