Over at The Unpopulist: "Trump Wants to Destroy Anthropic Because It Is Doing Congress’ Job of Preventing Him from Abusing AI"
An overview of the fight between DOD and Anthropic, why it matters, and what Congress should do this in the AI age.
Over at The UnPopulist I got a chance to work with Berny Belvedere and Shikha Dalmia on a piece entitled “Trump Wants to Destroy Anthropic Because It Is Doing Congress’ Job of Preventing Him from Abusing AI.” I break down the fight between the DOD and Anthropic, the broader takeaways, and why Congress needs to act, which is timely ahead of the first court hearing today on Anthropic’s lawsuit against the DOD, its a timely piece (the judge’s questions for the government are gonna be rough). I promise I’ll be writing about other stuff in the future (previous pieces here).
Here’s an except from my opening with a framing that I think helps outline the wild moment that we are in:
Over the last two weeks, the Department of Defense has initiated two wars: one against a nation with a long history of conflict with the United States; the other against one of the fastest-growing new companies in American history: Anthropic, the frontier artificial intelligence lab behind the popular Claude model. The DOD has effectively declared both Iran and Anthropic to be enemies of America, and though the weapons the DOD is using in each conflict differ dramatically—explosive missiles versus bureaucratic legal statutes—the department has made clear in both cases that its objective is to severely damage, if not totally destroy, the enemy. These two conflicts are intertwined and began on the same day: the very afternoon that the DOD blacklisted Anthropic, U.S. strikes on Iran commenced—with Claude reportedly helping to analyze intelligence and plan operations.
And why its important to distinguish between the illegal actions from the Trump Administration and the legitimate policy debates about AI and national security we need to be having NOW:
The clash between the DOD and Anthropic can be confusing, since it encompasses legitimate disagreements over AI and defense policy—but those are overshadowed by the Trump administration’s likely illegal approach to attacking what the president callsa “Radical Left AI company” that dares to take even a minimal stand for AI safety. Why this fight started and how the government has chosen to wage it are two separate questions, and conflating them is one of the major mistakes most coverage of this conflict has made.
Read it whole piece, “Trump Wants to Destroy Anthropic Because It Is Doing Congress’ Job of Preventing Him from Abusing AI” at The UnPopulist or by clicking below.
