Pete Hegseth Calls Anthropic’s Amodei a ‘Lunatic’, Defends Pentagon AI Use
The Australian Financial Review
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Details
- Date Published
- 30 Apr 2026
- Priority Score
- 4
- Australian
- Yes
- Created
- 1 May 2026, 12:00 am
Description
Pete Hegseth also slammed Anthropic again over its insistence that its Claude chatbot not be used for mass surveillance against Americans.
Summary
The US Defense Secretary's sharp rebuke of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei underscores a deepening rift between government defense imperatives and private sector AI safety guardrails regarding autonomous weaponry. By designating Anthropic a national security threat due to its refusal to allow Claude's use in mass surveillance or lethal operations, the Pentagon signals a shift toward prioritizing military capability over established safety alignment constraints. This friction highlights a critical global governance challenge: whether frontier AI labs can maintain safety-oriented 'acceptable use' policies when their technologies are deemed essential for national defense and geopolitical competition.
Body
TechnologyAIPrint articleJamie Tarabay, Roxana Tiron (BGOV) and Jen JudsonUpdated May 1, 2026 – 8.09am, first published at 5.47amWashington | US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US doesn’t let artificial intelligence make lethal targeting decisions even as he called Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei an “ideological lunatic” after a recent spat over military use of the company’s chatbot.Hegseth again slammed Anthropic over its insistence that its Claude chatbot not be used for mass surveillance against Americans or in fully autonomous weapons operations. Those demands led the Pentagon in March to take the unprecedented step of designating Anthropic a national security threat and moving to bar its products from the military.Loading...BloombergSaveLog in or Subscribe to save articleShareCopy linkCopiedEmailLinkedInTwitterFacebookCopy linkCopiedShare via...Gift this articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? LoginFollow the topics, people and companies that matter to you.Find out moreRead MoreAITrump's White HouseAnthropicFetching latest articles