Speaker A
We appreciate you taking the time. You are Daario Amade, the CEO of Anthropic. Is that right?
Anthropic CEO discusses AI restrictions, Pentagon clash, and national security concerns in a CBS News interview.
Key Takeaways
- Anthropic is committed to supporting US national security but insists on ethical restrictions for AI use.
- Fully autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance are red lines for the company.
- Negotiations with the Pentagon stalled due to ambiguous terms and a short ultimatum.
- Designation as a supply chain risk threatens continuity of AI services to the military.
- Balancing rapid AI innovation with democratic values and oversight remains a critical challenge.
What the video covers
- Anthropic has actively collaborated with the US government and military, deploying AI models for national security.
- The company supports nearly all government AI use cases except domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
- Concerns about AI reliability and oversight prevent Anthropic from allowing fully autonomous weapons without human control.
- Anthropic sought to negotiate terms with the Pentagon but faced a strict three-day ultimatum and ambiguous contract language.
- The Pentagon has not meaningfully agreed to Anthropic’s exceptions regarding AI use restrictions.
- Anthropic was designated a supply chain risk by the Department of Defense, complicating ongoing cooperation.
- The CEO emphasized willingness to continue supporting national security under agreed terms and offered continuity during transition.
- Anthropic stresses the importance of defending democratic values while countering autocratic adversaries like China and Russia.
- The company rejects accusations of selfishness and prioritizes safety, oversight, and ethical AI deployment.
- The interview highlights tensions between rapid AI development, legal frameworks, and military applications.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Anthropic's government collaboration
- 01:14Ethical concerns: mass surveillance and autonomous weapons
- 02:58Technical and oversight challenges with autonomous weapons
- 04:25Negotiation attempts with the Pentagon
- 06:05Impact of supply chain risk designation on military support
- 07:32Possibility of reaching an agreement
- 08:56Anthropic’s stance on national security and cooperation
- 10:48Legal and political implications
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
That's correct. Yeah. Great. Well, my first question to you is why won't you release Anthropic's AI without restrictions to the US government?
Speaker A
Yeah. So, you know, we should maybe back up a bit for a little bit of context.
Speaker A
So, um, you know, Anthropic actually has been the most lean forward of all the AI companies in working with the US government and working with the US military. We were the first company to, you know, put our models on the
Speaker A
classified cloud. We were the first company to make custom models for national security purposes. We're deployed across the intelligence community and the military for applications like cyber, you know, combat support operations, various things like this. And, you know, the
Speaker A
reason we've done this is, you know, I believe that we have to defend our country. I believe we have to defend our country from autocratic adversaries like China and like Russia. And so we've been, we've been very, you know, we've been very
Speaker A
lean forward. We have a substantial, you know, public sector team, public sector team. But, you know, I have always believed that, you know, as we defend ourselves against our autocratic adversaries, we have to do so in ways
Speaker A
that defend our democratic values and preserve our democratic values. And so we have said to the Department of War that we are okay with all use cases, basically 98 or 99% of the use cases they want to do except for two that
Speaker A
we're concerned about. One is domestic mass surveillance. There, we're worried that, you know, things may become possible with AI that weren't possible before. An example of this is something like taking data collected by private firms, having it bought by
Speaker A
the government, and analyzing in mass via AI. That actually isn't illegal. It was just never useful before the era of AI. So there's this way in which domestic mass surveillance is getting ahead of the law. The
Speaker A
technology is advancing so fast that it's out of step with the law. That's case number one. Case number two is fully autonomous weapons. This is not the partially autonomous weapons that are used in Ukraine or, or, you know, could
Speaker A
potentially be used in Taiwan today. This is the idea of making weapons that fire without any human involvement. Now even those, I think that, you know, our adversaries may at some point have them. So perhaps, you know,
Speaker A
they may, they may at some point be needed for the defense of democracy. But we have some concerns about them. First, the AI systems of today are nowhere near reliable enough to make fully autonomous weapons. Um, you know, anyone who's
Speaker A
worked with AI models understands that there's a basic unpredictability to them that in a purely technical way we have not solved. And there's an oversight question, too. If you have a large army of drones or robots that can operate
Speaker A
without any human oversight, where there aren't human soldiers to make the decisions about who to target, who to shoot at, that presents concerns and we need to have a conversation about how that's overseen and we haven't
Speaker A
had that conversation yet. And so we feel strongly that, you know, for those two use cases should not be allowed. The Pentagon has told us that they have agreed in principle to these two restrictions and
Speaker A
they wanted to strike a deal. Why couldn't an agreement be reached? So, there were, you know, there were kind of several stages of this all done quickly and kind of all, you know, determined by the kind of three-day, you
Speaker A
know, the very limited three-day window that they gave us, right?
Speaker A
They gave us an ultimatum to, you know, to agree to their terms in three days or, um, you know, be designated a supply chain risk or Defense Production Act. I guess we'll get to that later. Um, but, uh,
Speaker A
during that time, um, there were a few back and forths. You know, at one point they sent us language that, you know, appeared on the surface to meet our terms, but it had all kinds of
Speaker A
language like if the Pentagon deems it appropriate or, you know, or, you know, or to do anything in line with laws. So it didn't actually concede in any, it didn't actually concede in any meaningful way. And there were
Speaker A
further steps of it that also did not concede in any meaningful way. We have wanted to strike a deal since the beginning. If you want to get a sense of the Pentagon's position on it, the Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell the day
Speaker A
before tweeted, you know, he reiterated their position. We only allow all lawful use and this was the same as when they sent us their terms. So, um, they have not exceeded and, and, in, in, in, they have
Speaker A
not in any way agreed to our exceptions in any meaningful way. The president posted today in response to the situation, "Their selfishness," referring to Anthropic, "is putting American lives at risk, our troops in danger, and our national security in
Speaker A
jeopardy." What do you think? What's your response? So, you know, uh, in the statement we issued yesterday and also in the one we issued today, we said that we were willing even if the Department of War or even if the Trump
Speaker A
administration takes these unprecedented measures against us, this kind of supply chain designation that's normally used against foreign adversaries, we have said that, you know, even if they take these extreme actions, we'll do everything we can to support the
Speaker A
Department of War to provide its technology for as long as it takes to offboard us and onboard, you know, a competitor who's willing to do these things that we are not, that we are not willing to do,
Speaker A
prepared to exit. Yeah. So, so we have offered continuity. We're actually deeply concerned about this. We're deeply concerned about the kind of interruption of service, which is exactly what's happening when we're designated a supply chain risk, right? When we're designated a supply
Speaker A
chain risk, they say like, you know, you have to be off all of our systems. And I've talked to people on the ground, uniformed military officers, who say this is essential. Not having this will set us back six months, 12 months, maybe
Speaker A
longer. And so that's why we've tried so hard to try to get it, to try to get a deal. But again, the three-day ultimatum, the risk to designate us a supply chain. The whole timeline has
Speaker A
been driven by the Department of War, not by us. We are trying to provide continuity. We are trying to provide the services we are trying to provide. We are trying to reach a deal here.
Speaker A
So then what does this mean for the safety of Americans? Yeah. You know, I would say a couple things. Um, you know, in the short run, it means, and, you know, it's, it's, it's up to the Department of War.
Speaker A
You know, we're still trying to reach a, we're still trying to reach a deal with them. We're still trying to talk to them. You know, are they talking with you?
Speaker A
You, we've, we've, we've received various communications. We haven't seen anything that, you know, that satisfies our, we haven't seen anything that satisfies our concerns. Um, but, you know, I, I mean that just in the broad sense that we are
Speaker A
still, you know, we are still interested in working with them as long as it is in line with our red lines. Um, but it sounds like you're still really far apart and now Secretary Hegath has determined you all a supply chain risk
Speaker A
and said what he's said. So, do you think it's possible at this point to come to an agreement?
Speaker A
You know, I look, an agreement requires both sides. Um, we, for our side, are willing to serve the national security of this country. We are willing to provide our models to all branches of the government, including the Department
Speaker A
of War, the intelligence community, you know, the more civilian branches of the government under the terms that we've provided, under our red lines. We are always willing to do
Speaker A
don't we don't take offense here. The the reason we're providing our technology in this way is that we want to support the, you know, national security of the United States. We're not doing it, you know, for the sake of
Speaker A
Pentagon officials. We're not doing it for the sake of a particular administration. We're doing it because it's good for the national security of the United States, and we're going to continue to do that. Why do you think that it is better for Anthropic, a
Speaker A
private company, to have more say in how AI is used in the military than the Pentagon itself?
Speaker A
So, first I would say, and I think this is an important point, no one on the ground has actually to our knowledge run into the limits of any of these uh of any of these exceptions. These are, excuse me, these are 1% of use cases and
Speaker A
and ones that that we have seen no evidence on the ground have been done.
Speaker A
Now, now again, I can't say what their plans are that we don't know. Um, but but we have no evidence that these use cases um have actually have actually run into trouble. We've spread across the Department of War and uh other parts of
Speaker A
the government um without without running into any of these problems. Now, in terms of these one or two narrow exceptions, I actually agree that in the long run, we need to have a democratic conversation. In the long run, I
Speaker A
actually do believe that it is Congress's job. If for example domest there are possibilities with domestic mass surveillance, government buying of uh you know bulk data that has been produced on Americans, locations, personal information, political affiliation to build profiles and it's
Speaker A
now possible to analyze that with AI. The fact that that's legal, that seems like, you know, the judicial interpretation of the fourth amendment has not caught up or the laws passed by Congress have not caught up. So in the
Speaker A
long run we think Congress should catch up with where the technology is going but Congress is not the fastest moving body in the world and for right now we are the ones who see this technology on the front line. I would expect that the
Speaker A
Department of War I would expect them to be thoughtful about these issues to you know to to proactively you know think think about these issues and so I would have expected them not not to have any concern and you know for us to have a
Speaker A
for us to have a conversation but I think in the absence of that um you know you know we need to look at the technology we need to look at what it's capable of in terms of reliability and
Speaker A
we need to look at the ways in which it's getting ahead of the law and and in which it's escaping the intent of the law. Those are some very narrow areas, but I think that they're important.
Speaker A
These are things that are fundamental to Americans, right? The the the the the right not to be spied on by the government, right? The the right for our military officers to make decisions about war themselves and not turn it
Speaker A
over completely to a machine. These are these are fundamental principles. But in the name of fundamental principles, why should Americans trust you, the CEO of a private company to make these decisions instead of the federal government?
Speaker A
Well, I would give I would give two answers to that. One, you know, a a a you know, we are we are a private company, right? We can choose to sell or not sell whatever we want. There are
Speaker A
other providers. if the DOW, the government, you know, doesn't like the services we provide or or or or the way that we make them, they can use another contractor. This would have been the normal way to handle this, right? Just
Speaker A
to say I would have disagreed, but I would have respected them if they said DO, we don't want to work with Enthropic. Our principles are not aligned with yours. We're going to go with one of the other models. But
Speaker A
they've both extended that to parts of the government beyond the DO and tried to punitively revoke our contracts beyond DO and they've done this supply chain designation thing which basically says that if you're part of a uh if
Speaker A
you're if you're another private company who has military contracts, you can't use entropic in in you can't use anthropic in a way that touches those military contracts. So they're reaching in to the behavior of private enterprise. And it's very hard to
Speaker A
interpret this in any way other than punitive. To our knowledge, the supply chain designation has never been applied to an American company. It has only been applied to ad you know advers like you know Kasperski Labs which is a Russian
Speaker A
cyber security company that you know that is you know suspected of suspected of ties to the Russian government Chinese chip suppliers um you know being being lumped in with them it it feels very punitive and inappropriate given the amount that we've done for US
Speaker A
national security. So you say you've done so much for US national security. You're adhering to these two restrictions that you want to keep. Do you think that Anthropic knows better than the Pentagon here?
Speaker A
We don't. Look, you know, I I one of the things about a free market and free enterprise is different folks can provide different products under different principles. Remember, this isn't just about terms of use. This isn't just about, you know, this is what
Speaker A
our model is legally allowed to do. Our model has a personality. It's capable of certain things. It's able to do certain things reliably. It's able to not do certain things reliably. And I think we are a good judge of what our models can
Speaker A
do reliably and what and what they cannot do reliably. And I think we do have a good view into how the technology again is getting ahead of the law. And I but I would say over I would say again I
Speaker A
I I actually agree with you that this is not tenable in in the long term. I don't think the right long-term solution is for a private company and the Pentagon to argue about this. I think Congress needs to act here and we are thinking
Speaker A
about that. We are thinking about what Congress could do to impose some of these guard rails that don't hinder our ability to defeat our adversaries, but that you know allow us to defeat our adversaries in a way that's in line with
Speaker A
the values of in line with the values of our country. But as you know, Congress doesn't move fast. No. So, you know, I think I think I think in the meantime, we do need to draw a line in the sand.
Speaker A
So, until Congress acts, you're saying you are going to hold firm here. But there are so many other companies out there that do business with the US government. Boeing builds aircraft for the US military. Boeing doesn't tell the
Speaker A
US military what to do with that aircraft. How is this any different? Again, I would say two ways that it's different. One, I would point again to the newness of the technology. Right?
Speaker A
when a technology is wellestablished then uh you know the the you know I you know I mean there are lots of technical things about aircrafts but but you know I think I think you know a general has a
Speaker A
pretty good understanding of like how an aircraft works like aircrafts have been around for a long time but there's plenty of innovation inside the aerospace industry sure but not at the pace that not at the pace that we see with AI AI is moving so
Speaker A
fast I've talked often about how AI is on an exponential trend every the models the you know the the the the the amount of computation that goes into the models doubles every four months. Uh we have never seen anything like this pace of
Speaker A
innovation. But if that pace continues a pace yes then the US government will never be caught up. So how does that logic apply if you have long argued that you want to work with the US government to provide
Speaker A
you know the appropriate national security if it's going to be such a fast development for the foreseeable future Congress can't catch up then why turn your back I think there's only I think there's only catching up once right so the pace
Speaker A
of the technology is fast the issues that arise are few but very important again we we only have two of these domestic mass surveillance, fully autonomous weapons. We need to have a conversation with Congress to help them understand some some of the risks
Speaker A
associated with it. Again, this is the most American thing in the world. No one wants to be spied on by the US government. No one wants to be spied on by the US government.
Speaker A
At the exact same time, some of our greatest adversaries have technology that is either quickly catching up to us or will eventually do so. perhaps already caught up. And so our if our military is critical to defending the
Speaker A
American people and critical to our democracy, freedom, the republic, why stay in this position and say no, we're not going to cooperate.
Speaker A
You know, again, that's an abstract that's an abstract argument, but let's look at the actual two uses. Domestic mass surveillance does not help the US catch up with its adversaries. Domestic mass surveillance is is you know is an
Speaker A
abuse of the government's authority even where it's technically legal. So that one we can rule out. Um fully autonomous weapons there I actually am concerned that we may need to keep up it. you know it's it's it's not you know the
Speaker A
technology is not ready and so we are not as I said we are not categorically against fully autonomous weapons we simply believe that the reliability is not there yet and that we need to have a conversation about oversight and we have
Speaker A
offered to work with the department of war to help develop these technologies to prototype them in a sandbox but they weren't interested in this unless unless they could do whatever they want right from the beginning. And and and and so
Speaker A
you know again we we need to balance the existential need. No one has emphasized it more than me to defeat our adversaries. But we need to fight we need to fight in the right way. You know this is like saying there are plenty of
Speaker A
countries adversaries commit war crimes. Shouldn't we commit war crimes as well? I'm not saying this amounts to war crimes. What I'm saying is that the the the the essence of our values is that we have to find a way to win in a way that
Speaker A
preserves those values. We can't just be a total race to the bottom. We we you know, we have to have some principles and these are very few. This technology can radically accelerate what our military can do. I've talked to
Speaker A
admirals. I've talked to generals. I've talked to combatant commanders who say this has revolutionized what we can do.
Speaker A
And and and these are just the very limited use cases we've deployed so far.
Speaker A
And and and so why harp on the 1% of use cases that are against our values when we can pursue the 99% of use cases that are in favor of our that that that advance our democratic values and that
Speaker A
defend this country. and and we can even try to study that last 1% of use cases to understand if there is a way to do them consistent with our values. That is our position and I think that's very
Speaker A
reason. Give me one or two examples of what could go wrong. So the the kind of thing that we I there there are two classes of things that I can imagine could could go wrong. One again is around this idea of reliability
Speaker A
which is just it targets the wrong person. It shoots a civilian. It doesn't show the judgment that a human that a human soldier would show. Um, uh, friendly fire or shooting a civilian or just the wrong kind of things. We don't
Speaker A
want to sell something that we don't think is reliable and we don't want to sell something that could get our own people killed or that could get innocent people killed. Second is this question of oversight. If you think about it, you
Speaker A
know, you you human soldiers, there's, you know, there's a whole chain of accountability that assumes a human uses their common sense. Suppose I have an army of 10 million drones all coordinated by one person or a small set
Speaker A
of people. Can't you know, I think it's easy to see that there are accountability issues there, right? That that that you know, concentrating power that much doesn't work. It it doesn't mean we shouldn't have this fleet.
Speaker A
Again, I don't know. Maybe we need it at some point because our adversaries will have it, but we need to have a conversation about accountability, about who is holding the button and who can say no. And I think that's very
Speaker A
reasonable. President Trump has called Anthropic a left-wing woke company. Is this decision at all driven by ideology? I look I can't speak for what you know I can't speak for what other parties are doing and what they're doing
Speaker A
but you and here in anthropic yeah look we we but we we I think have tried to be very neutral we speak up on issues of AI policy where we have expertise we don't we don't have views we don't think about general political
Speaker A
issues and we try to work together whenever there's common ground for example I went to an event in Pennsylvania with the president, with Senator McCormack um about provisioning energy, provisioning enough energy to uh power our AI models in provision our AI
Speaker A
models in the US. I spoke to the president. I you know I I I I expressed that I you know agreed with many aspects of what he's doing. We also did a pledge around um you know using using AI for
Speaker A
health and we've done a number of other things when the AI action the administration's AI action plan when the administration's AI action plan came out we said that there were you know many perhaps most aspects of it that we
Speaker A
agreed with. So this idea that we've somehow been partisan or that we haven't been evenhanded we've been studiously even-handed. Um and and again we can't control if someone even even the president you know has has an opinion about us that's not under our control.
Speaker A
What's under our control is that we can be reasonable we can be neutral and we can stand up for what we believe.
Speaker A
1 to 10 will there be an agreement with the federal government on this in the future or do you think this is over?
Speaker A
Look I I I have no crystal ball for our part. Our position is clear. We have these two red lines. We've had them from day one. We are still uh you know we are still advocating for those red lines.
Speaker A
We're not going to move on those red lines. If we can get to the point with the department where you know where you know we can see things the same way then perhaps there could be an agreement for
Speaker A
our part and for the sake of US national security. We we you know we we continue to want to make this work. Um but uh you know again it takes two parties to have an agreement. If you had a moment with
Speaker A
the president right now tonight, what would you say to him? You know, I again I would say we are patriotic Americans. We have done everything we have done has been for the sake of this country, for the sake of
Speaker A
supporting US national security. Our leaning forward in deploying our models with the military was done because we believe in this country. We believe in uh defeating our autocratic adversaries.
Speaker A
We believe in defending America. The red lines we have drawn we drew because we we we we believe that crossing those red lines is is contrary to American values and we wanted to stand up for American values. And when we were threatened with
Speaker A
supply chain designation and defense production act which are unprecedented intrusions into the private economy by the government. We we exercised our classic first amendment rights to speak up and disagree with the government.
Speaker A
Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world and we are patriots in everything we have done here. We have stood up for the values of this country.
Speaker A
Do you think Anthropic can survive this as a business? you know, uh when when the president when um uh um Secretary Hegsth uh tweeted out the supply chain designation, he said something that was inaccurate, that far exceeds their
Speaker A
lawful authority. He said that any company that has a military contract can't do business with Enthropic at all.
Speaker A
That is not what the law said. We put out a statement that uh pointed to the law. All the law says is that as part of its military contracts, any company cannot use anthropic as part of those military contracts? That is a very that
Speaker A
is a much more limited impact. So you're confident that Anthropic can survive this? Not not only survive it, we're going to be fine. The the impact of this designation is fairly small. Now, the nature of the tweet that the secretary
Speaker A
put out was designed to create uncertainty, was designed to create a situation where people believed the impact would be much larger, was designed to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but we won't let that succeed.
Speaker A
We will be fine. Critics call this an abuse of power. What the Pentagon is doing and what the White House is doing. Do you believe this is an abuse of power? You know, again, I would return to the idea that
Speaker A
this is unprecedented. But is it an abuse of power? You know, this has never happened before. This designation has never happened before with an American company. And I think it was made very clear in some of their statements, in
Speaker A
some of their language, that this was retaliatory and punitive. I don't I don't I don't know what else what else to call it, retaliatory and punitive.
Speaker A
So, will you take legal action? We we I've I've I've stated I've stated in our statement again, all we've received is a tweet. We haven't received an actual supply chain design. You know, there's there's been no actual action by the
Speaker A
government. There's just been tweets saying what they're going saying what they claim they're going to do.
Speaker A
You haven't received any formal information. We haven't received any formal information whatsoever. All we've seen are tweets from the president and tweets from Secretary Hegsth. when when when when we receive some kind of formal action, we will look at it. We will
Speaker A
understand it and we will challenge it in court. What do you think that says about their ability to navigate major national security issues if this is the way that you say they're communicating with you?
Speaker A
Again, you know, I I I don't want to make that I don't want to make this about this particular administration. I don't want to make this about particular people. We are trying to do whatever we can to support US national security.
Speaker A
That's why we're committed to trying to find a deal. If we can't find a deal, that is why we're committed to to offboarding in, you know, in a in a smooth way that allows our war fighters to continue to be supported as they as
Speaker A
they go into conflicts. And that's why we're committed to standing up to uh you know, actions that we think are not in line with the values of this country.
Speaker A
It's it's not about any particular person. It's not about any particular administration. It's about the principle of standing up for what's right.
Speaker A
Dario Amade, CEO of Anthropic. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me.
Topics:AnthropicAI restrictionsPentagonnational securityautonomous weaponsdomestic surveillancesupply chain riskUS militaryAI ethicsgovernment negotiations
