{"id":515113,"date":"2026-03-03T03:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515113\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T03:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:09:12","slug":"trump-declares-war-on-ai-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515113\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump declares war on AI giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 3, 2026 \u2014 11:59am<\/p>\n

Save<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

Save this article for later<\/p>\n

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n

Got it<\/p>\n

AAA<\/p>\n

Even as Donald Trump directed government agencies to \u201cimmediately cease\u201d<\/a> all use of Anthropic\u2019s Claude artificial intelligence tools last week, those tools were being used to launch the assault on Iran.<\/p>\n

Deeply embedded within the US military \u2013 it was the only AI technology approved for classified use \u2013 Claude is used for operational planning, to collect and collate intelligence, identify targets, simulate battle scenarios and undertake cyber operations.<\/p>\n

\"PetePete Hegseth\u2019s \u201cDepartment of War\u201d has been given six months to phase Claude out. AP<\/p>\n

Also used in the kidnapping of Venezuela\u2019s president, Nicolas Maduro<\/a>, Claude is so entrenched within the US Defence Department \u2013 Pete Hegseth\u2019s \u201cDepartment of War\u201d \u2013 that the administration has, despite the immediacy of Trump\u2019s directive, given the department six months to phase it out and replace it with Anthropic rivals\u2019 models.<\/p>\n

The confrontation between the Pentagon and Anthropic relates to an attempt by the department to rewrite a contract it has with the AI company.<\/p>\n

The company, whose co-founder Dario Amodei has been outspoken about the need for regulation of AI, has insisted on two red lines: that its model isn\u2019t used to conduct mass surveillance of Americans or to control autonomous weapons without human involvement in the \u201ckill chain\u201d.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"After<\/a><\/p>\n

Given that both those applications would appear to be illegal, and that the Pentagon has insisted that it wouldn\u2019t use AI unlawfully, what\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n

The Pentagon is presenting its stance as an issue of principle. It doesn\u2019t want private contractors constraining the use of products that it has bought, arguing that it doesn\u2019t allow companies that supply it with missiles to tell it where it can and can\u2019t deploy them.<\/p>\n

Anthropic believes that AI is too immature and dangerous to be deployed without the restrictions it insists on and argues that current laws aren\u2019t keeping pace with the rate at which AI capabilities are developing.<\/p>\n

Amodei says, for instance, that AI makes it possible for individually innocuous data to be lawfully collected that would provide a comprehensive picture of anyone\u2019s life, automatically and at a massive scale.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another element at play.<\/p>\n

\"Anthropic\u2019sAnthropic\u2019s co-founder Dario Amodei has insisted its model isn\u2019t used for mass surveillance of Americans or to control autonomous weapons without human involvement.Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Amodei has been critical of Trump, supported Kamala Harris at last year\u2019s election and has been vocal in his calls for regulation of AI, even as Trump\u2019s executive orders have torn up the relatively light safety and privacy obligations that Joe Biden had imposed on the sector.<\/p>\n

Trump, in announcing the ban on Anthropic\u2019s technology, labelled it a \u201cradical left\u201d company, its executives \u201cleftwing nutjobs\u201d who had no idea of what the real world is about and who were out of control. This administration declares war on its opponents and critics.<\/p>\n

Hegseth has directed his department to establish benchmarks for \u201cmodel objectivity\u201d as a procurement criterion, saying \u201cout with Utopian idealism, in with hard-nosed realism,\u201d and that \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion and social ideology\u201d have no place in the Department of War.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The action taken against Anthropic is unprecedented.<\/p>\n

Not only will the Pentagon cease dealing with the company, but it has declared it a \u201csupply chain risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hegseth, in a social media post, wrote that no contractor, supplier or partner with the US military can conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic, which could prevent the company from working with partners within the incestuous AI ecosystem and force companies like Nvidia, Amazon and Google to divest shareholdings and end any commercial relationship they have with Anthropic if they want to do deals with the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

It could, some AI analysts have said, be a death blow for a company regarded as being at the forefront of AI development. Anthropic\u2019s release of its Claude Code tools last month wiped more than $US1 trillion<\/a> off the value of software companies.<\/p>\n

The administration has gone beyond ending the relationship with Anthropic and trying to intimidate those it does business with. Trump has also threatened to use the Cold War-era Defence Production Act to force it to supply Claude without any caveats.<\/p>\n

\"ClaudeClaude is used for operational planning, to collect and collate intelligence, to identify targets, simulate battle scenarios and undertake cyber operations.AP<\/p>\n

In other words, by declaring it a supply chain risk and ordering other companies not to deal with it on pain of losing their own defence contracts, the administration is saying it is a risk to national security. At the same time, however, it is signalling that Claude is so vital to national security that it must be made available without any restrictions.<\/p>\n

Amodei has said that the company cannot, in good conscience, accede to the administration\u2019s demands and will fight it in the courts, albeit that so far the only information it has on the stand-off is from Trump and Hegseth tweets.<\/p>\n

He sees, at this stage of AI\u2019s development, potential risks to humanity if Claude were deployed in a fully autonomous mode and the potential undermining of the Fourth Amendment privacy protections if it were used to collect information on Americans without changes to existing privacy laws.<\/p>\n

An obvious solution to the conflict would be for Anthropic to simply cease dealing with the Pentagon and for the Pentagon to enlist other AI companies to replace it, as it has. It has already signed a deal with OpenAI and is close to one with Elon Musk\u2019s xAI.<\/p>\n

Anthropic believes that AI is too immature and dangerous to be deployed without the restrictions it is insisting on and argues that current laws aren\u2019t keeping pace with the rate at which AI capabilities are developing.<\/p>\n

A $US200 million ($281 million) contract is immaterial for Anthropic, which just raised $US30 billion at a $US380 billion ($535 billion) valuation. It would happily walk away, but the administration, however, is not prepared to allow that to happen, which signals that Claude is the only product currently available that can deliver what the Pentagon wants.<\/p>\n

To his credit, Amodei is standing his ground because the issues at stake couldn\u2019t be more critical and he clearly mistrusts this administration, with its record of simply ignoring US laws and the Constitution, to use its AI tools responsibly.<\/p>\n

He clearly doesn\u2019t believe Claude has been developed to the point where it is reliable enough to trust to control autonomous weapons without human oversight.<\/p>\n

Claude has a reputation for experiencing fewer \u201challucinations\u201d \u2013 inaccurate or fabricated responses \u2013 than its rivals, but nevertheless does generate them. AI is, at this moment, an imperfect technology.<\/p>\n

Anthropic\u2019s instance highlights the inadequacy of current laws to protect against those inadequacies or abuses of the technology\u2019s capabilities, or the risks of allowing applications of AI before those risks are understood.<\/p>\n

Trump, having revoked Biden\u2019s executive orders that provided some regulation of AI \u2013 directed more at transparency into what the companies were doing than restricting their development \u2013 has also issued orders that purport to override state laws that it sees as restricting AI\u2019s development. The administration wants a \u201cminimally burdensome\u201d national framework for AI.<\/p>\n

AI is the most consequential technology of our time. It threatens to change the way we work and live, the relationships between governments and their citizens and the way wars are conducted. There ought to be some guardrails.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"US<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, there is a global race occurring (even the Europeans, who have some of the more stringent relations have been talking about winding them back), despite an awareness that the technology isn\u2019t fully developed and carries significant risks.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s significant support for Anthropic\u2019s stance from those at the coal face of AI development \u2013 those building the models rather than the billionaires profiting from them \u2013 which suggests that those who know the technology best are very mindful of the risks.<\/p>\n

Rather than leave it to people like Trump and Hegseth \u2013 or Amodei \u2013 to develop the moral framework for how AI might be deployed, it\u2019s a situation crying out for lawmakers to get involved and create a 21st-century framework of laws for a 21st-century technology which, while promising so much opportunity, carries so much latent risk.<\/p>\n

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Save<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen Bartholomeusz<\/a> is one of Australia\u2019s most respected business journalists. He was most recently co-founder and associate editor of the Business Spectator website and an associate editor and senior columnist at The Australian.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 3, 2026 \u2014 11:59am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-515113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}