US judge rules Trump sanctions against Anthropic illegal

A US federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration's sanctions against AI company Anthropic were illegal. The ruling, made by Judge Rita Lin, overturned the government's punishment which had barred federal agencies from using Anthropic's AI models.

The sanctions were imposed after Anthropic refused to change its terms of use, which prohibited the use of its AI models for mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons. The government had designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk, prohibiting defense contractors from using its models.

According to Computerworld, Judge Lin described the government's actions as "arbitrary and capricious" and stated that they constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. The judge also noted that the government's actions seemed punitive and were not based on legitimate national security risks.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch, Punch Nigeria, SiliconANGLE, Computerworld, Ars Technica Policy — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.