Earlier this month, the Pentagon threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) or label Anthropic a “supply chain risk” should the company fail to remove restrictions from its acceptable use policy. These restrictions include limits on the use of Anthropic’s AI product, Claude, in mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems.

A new blog post by Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute, details how this threat from the Pentagon is not only an overstep by the executive branch but could also have broader implications for AI developments, in part writing:

“While it might only directly affect Anthropic, blacklisting the company would also signal to numerous other companies what the government is willing to do to force certain actions in their products, sending a rippling effect at this critical time in technological development. The result could hurt not only developments here in the US but also the global success of AI leaders like Anthropic. Not only might it signal that the technology is deemed ‘risky,’ it could also result in other countries making their own concerning demands of America’s tech leaders with the threat of blacklisting as an alternative.”

To speak with Huddleston about the Trump administration’s threat to invoke the DPA, contact Christopher Tarvardian.