News from the front - Anthropic returns fire on the US Department of War and rejects demands not to block AI from launching missiles on its own

He did it, he actually did it! Confronted with an ultimatum from the US Department of War to drop contractual clauses that prevent its tech from being used for mass surveillance of domestic citizens or the autonomous launching of weapons without a human being pressing the actual button, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has stuck to his metaphorical guns and refused to comply.

With a deadline looming of 5pm today Washington time, Pete Hesgeth, Secretary of State at the Department of War, had threatened a number of possible outcomes if Anthropic didn’t fold, including being blacklisted as a security risk or having Cold War legislation brought to bear to compel it to do what the Administration wants.

But Amodei got his retaliation in first, issuing a public statement on Thursday that made it clear Anthropic would rather risk losing the business than buckling to his demands. He went out of ...