US court refuses to overturn Pentagon ban on Anthropic

A US appeals court has upheld the Pentagon's decision to ban AI startup Anthropic from its supply chain. The court ruled 2-1 in the Pentagon's favor, allowing the government to continue removing Anthropic's Claude models from its systems and bar the use of its products for Defense Department work.

The dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon began in February when the company refused to remove safeguards on its products, citing concerns that they could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous armed drones. According to Fast Company, Judge Gregory G. Katsas wrote that the Department reasonably feared Anthropic might manipulate Claude's design to prevent it from performing national-security functions.

The ruling rejected Anthropic's argument that the Defense Department ban on its Claude models was arbitrary and unconstitutional, as reported by Quartz. This decision is separate from a previous ruling in California, which found the Pentagon acted illegally by punishing Anthropic for its criticism of the Pentagon's views on AI use.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch Nigeria, Punch, Fast Company, Quartz, Winnipeg Free Press — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.