Anthropic and Its C.E.O. Dario Amodei: A.I. Beliefs and the Pentagon Dispute

The Defense Department has approved Anthropic’s advanced A.I. for classified work, but the company opposes certain uses, including autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance. That disagreement threatens a contract worth as much as $200 million and could prompt the Pentagon to bar its contractors from using Anthropic’s technology.

Competitors such as OpenAI, Google and xAI are also seeking Defense Department work, raising the stakes for Anthropic’s commercial growth. Dario and Daniela Amodei founded Anthropic in early 2021 with about 15 former OpenAI colleagues after disputes over how to fund, build and release A.I.

They developed the Claude chatbot and released it after ChatGPT helped spark the broader A.I. boom. Dr. Amodei has repeatedly warned about A.I. risks, from disinformation to mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. He was part of an effort in 2019 not to release an early model called GPT-2 while at OpenAI.

United States

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