‘God, It’s Terrifying’: How the Pentagon Got Hooked on AI War Machines
An excerpt from the coming book Project Maven shows how the US enlisted Silicon Valley in its vision for AI warfare, now playing out in Iran.
Illustration: enigmatriz for Bloomberg Businessweek
On a recent Friday night, the US made two drastic moves that could end up altering the future of artificial-intelligence-powered warfare. Just after 5 p.m. Eastern time on Feb. 27, Donald Trump’s administration declared that Anthropic PBC, the $380 billion startup whose Claude-branded AI products have recently become ubiquitous, was a supply chain risk. In addition to making consumer-facing chatbots and coding tools, Anthropic had major contracts to provide AI services to the military. That relationship had gone sour when the company refused to allow its tech to help enable mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, while the government said it should be able to use the tech for all lawful purposes. With its move, the administration blacklisted one of the country’s most promising tech startups, as if it were something run by the Chinese military. President Trump also derided Anthropic on social media as a “Radical Left AI company.”