Michael Liedtke and David Klepper, “What to know about the clash between the Pentagon and Anthropic over military’s AI use”

Liedtke, Michael, and David Klepper. “What to know about the clash between the Pentagon and Anthropic over military’s AI use.” AP News, 28 Feb. 2026, https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-pentagon-ai-dario-amodei-hegseth-0c464a054359b9fdc80cf18b0d4f690c. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026. 

Here, Liedtke and Klepper detail a recent development in the relationship between the U.S. Department of Defense and the AI company Anthropic. After Anthropic refused to meet demands from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that raised concerns about their technology being used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, the Department of Defense ended its $200 million contract with them. The legal rationale for Hegseth’s move, as Liedtke and Klepper report, is that Anthropic has been labeled as a “risk to the nation’s defense supply chain” (an unusual designation for an American company). The authors of this article go on to discuss what the implications of this will be for Anthropic’s business model and how competitors like OpenAI have benefitted by entering into contract with the Department of Defense in Anthropic’s absence. There is also some discussion of how this standoff highlights safety concerns regarding AI use by the military. 

With artificial intelligence continuing to advance with little regulation and few guardrails, I find reports like this important for keeping us aware of where there may be risks in its use. Given that even a tech CEO like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei (who stands to lose considerable profit from conflict with the Pentagon) is willing to risk a loss of business over safety concerns with his technology, I think we all can afford to pay more attention to this issue. The article demonstrates how potential harms from AI use are not inherent in the technology but may also come from the users.