‘We are patriotic Americans’ committed to defending the United States, says Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei

in Interview with CBS News Shortly after Trump ordered the federal government to do so Stop working with AnthropyAmodei noted that the AI ​​startup was the first company to serve the defense community in a classified environment.

“I believe we have to defend our country from authoritarian adversaries like China and Russia,” he said. “So we’ve been very forward-leaning. We have a great team from the public sector.”

While Anthropic provided AI to the government, the Pentagon required its unrestricted use in all legal scenarios. But the company stressed that it has “red lines”, which are its use in domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.

The talks failed to reach an agreement, prompting Trump to ban Anthropics from government agencies, while giving the Pentagon a six-month phase-out period.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also called the company a “supply chain risk,” meaning other contractors working at the Pentagon would not be allowed to use Anthropic’s AI for military work.

Anthropic is on board for 98% to 99% of military use cases, Amodei told CBS. But his interest in mass surveillance is that the latest AI technology will be a game-changer, even within current legal limits.

“This is actually not illegal. It was never useful before the age of AI. So, there is a way in which domestic mass surveillance trumps the law,” he explained. “Technology is advancing so quickly that it is not keeping up with the law.”

As for autonomous weapons, Amodei said AI isn’t reliable enough to completely take humans out of the loop, citing the technical problem of a “fundamental unpredictability” in today’s models.

So far, he’s not aware of any real-life examples of a user flouting Anthropic’s red lines, but he acknowledged that it’s not possible in the long run for a private company to decide these issues.

Amodei noted that ultimately, Congress must put up guardrails for the use of AI, but lawmakers are slow to act. The company is also “not categorically against autonomous weapons,” but believes the reliability of AI is not there yet.

In the meantime, Anthropic remains open to working with the government and suggested that the two sides remain in contact.

“We are prepared to submit our models to all branches of government, including the War Department, the Intelligence Community, and the civilian branches of government under the terms we presented under our red lines,” he said.

Trump and Hegseth’s blacklisting of Anthropists came hours before Trump’s announcement The United States and Israel launched large-scale air strikes on IranIn what appears to be a long-term struggle aimed at regime change.

AI has emerged as a critical tool for the military, especially in identifying targets and predicting adversary behavior by quickly analyzing intelligence.

When CBS asked him what he would tell Trump now, Amodei replied: “I would say, we are patriotic Americans. Everything we did was for this country, to support America’s national security. Our leaning forward in deploying our models with the military was because of our belief in this country.”

But he added: “The red lines that we drew, we drew because we believe that crossing those red lines conflicts with American values. We wanted to defend American values.”

What hangs over Anthropic is the supply chain risk rating by the Pentagon chief An unprecedented move against an American company Which can impair its growth.

Amodei described the order as punitive but downplayed the ultimate damage, saying it would not affect non-defense work performed by Anthropic’s clients.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “The impact of that designation is fairly small. Now, the nature of the tweet that the minister posted was designed to create uncertainty, it was designed to create a situation where people thought the impact was going to be much greater, and it was designed to create fear and uncertainty and doubt. But we’re not going to let that succeed. We’re going to be okay.”