DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Pentagon threatens to cancel Anthropic contract by Friday if company doesn’t lift safeguards

The Pentagon has threatened to cancel Anthropic’s contract by Friday if the company does not agree to the department’s terms for the use of its AI model, sources confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Tuesday at the Pentagon amid a dispute over the AI firm’s usage policy, which bars its model Claude from being used for mass surveillance or to develop weapons that can be used without human oversight.

If Anthropic doesn’t agree to the Pentagon’s terms, the department warned it would use the Defense Production Act against the company or designate it as a supply chain risk, a senior Pentagon official told The Hill. Axios first reported the Friday deadline.

“During the conversation, Dario expressed appreciation for the Department’s work and thanked the Secretary for his service,” an Anthropic spokesperson told The Hill in a statement on Tuesday.

“We continued good-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government’s national security mission in line with what our models can reliably and responsibly do,” the spokesperson added.

The Pentagon official insisted that tactical operation cannot be led by exception and the legality of the missions are the department’s responsibility as the end user.

“The Pentagon has only given out lawful orders,” the official said.

The relationship between Anthropic and the Pentagon has become increasingly rocky in recent weeks, putting at risk the $200 million contract the company signed with the Defense Department last summer.

Google, OpenAI and xAI also struck similar contracts and have since been added to the department’s new bespoke AI platform, GenAI.mil.

However, Anthropic’s Claude has so far been the only AI model available on classified systems. The Pentagon reached a new agreement with Elon Musk’s xAI to use its AI model, Grok, on the classified side, the Pentagon official told The Hill, while Google and OpenAI are “close.”

Despite the months-long back-and-forth, Tuesday’s meeting was respectful and cordial and both sides were thoughtful and friendly with no one raising their voice, a source familiar with the meeting told The Hill.

Amodei underscored that no one operating in the field has encountered issues with the company’s two red lines, mass surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons, according to the source.

However, the Pentagon official said that “this has nothing to do with mass surveillance and autonomous weapons being used.”

Amodei also noted that Anthropic had no outreach to the department or Palantir after the Jan. 3 raid that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and that the AI startup has never objected or interfered with “legitimate” military operation, the source familiar with the meeting said.

Previously, a senior Pentagon official told The Hill that a senior Anthropic executive was talking with a senior Palantir executive and asking if Anthropic’s AI model was used during the early January operation.

The Palantir executive told the Pentagon about the interaction since he was alarmed the question was brought up in way that would signal that Anthropic could disapprove of use of its model.

The Defense Production Act, which was enacted 1950, gives the president broad authority to control domestic industries for the purpose of national defense. The law was used during the COVID-19 pandemic to boost the production of vaccines.

The Pentagon official said the department would use the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to have its model used however the department sees fit, regardless of whether the AI firm wants to or not.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5752960-pentagon-threatens-anthropic-contract/

So the trump administration agreed to and signed a contract with the current constraints in place. But now, mid contract they expect to change the terms and parameters of the contract or they will cancel it? They have officially adopted the trump business model.

Yes. And that's the way all contracts with the Pentagon work. It's not the Trump business model, it's the US military industrial complex business model. It's been that way for over 160 years.

So something especially set up not to spy on the American people or create a weapon out of and that was agreed to, now must change to be used for the very purposes it was agreed not to be used for? And it's been that way for 160 years?

Yep. You're catching on.

I don't think that's true. Just like I don't believe something done legally is comparable to something done illegally.

It's okay to be wrong.

Here is the direction I think you're gong to head but it's not as simple as you're making it sound............................

The Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950 (P.L. 81-774, 50 U.S.C. §§4501 et seq.), as amended, confers upon the President a broad set of authorities to influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense. The authorities can be used across the federal government to shape the domestic industrial base so that, when called upon, it is capable of providing essential materials and goods needed for the national defense.

Though initially passed in response to the Korean War, the DPA is historically based on the War Powers Acts of World War II. Gradually, Congress has expanded the term national defense, as defined in the DPA. Based on this definition, the scope of DPA authorities now extends beyond shaping U.S. military preparedness and capabilities, as the authorities may also be used to enhance and support domestic preparedness, response, and recovery from natural hazards, terrorist attacks, and other national emergencies.

This comes from congress.gov whose link will not post.

This wasn't passed until 1950. Not 160 years ago. The war powers act only allowed such things to be done during a time of war before 1960. Not the same thing.

And I have seen nothing to indicate this would apply to force a business to make one of their products available in such a form to be used for wide spread spying on American citizens.

Different conversation altogether.

We were talking about the ability to just cancel contracts. That was born in 1861 and SCOTUS reinforced it in a landmark case in 1875. And it IS as simple as it sounds.

So now you are comparing the ability to cancel contracts with the ability to apply pressure on businesses to transform their products and if they don't you will cancel their contracts?

This discussion was never simply about the governments ability to cancel contracts. It was about using a contract by holding it over their heads as a threat of they don't conform their products as you want them to do.

Even when the people who make the product do not believe it is a product that "can reliably and responsibly do,” what the government is asking it to do. But then those type of things have never been high on their priority list from the beginning.

They have been told what to think and what to believe so that is what they are thinking and believing... It's pretty simple.

#trolltime

I'm intelligent enough to know how government contract work, believe it or not.

Climb back in your hole, troll boy.

That's the only thing this conversation was about, until you just changed it. An ancillary argument is totally fine, but don't try to change the facts; they're all over this page and we were the only ones talking.

You're only comment from your copy/paste was about cancelling the contract.


I said that's how government contracts work.

You asked me to clarify based on the circumstances, I said "yep".

You said you didn't think so, I said you were wrong.

You changed the direction by predicting what I was thinking.

I said "nope", wasn't doing that.

Then I provided proof of what I was saying.

Now you say "that's not what we were talking about".

Either there are voices in your head, or you would like to change the direction of the conversation.

I would be all for that, as there is definitely more nuance to the conversation, definitely more scope than just "the contract".


BUT... Now it's troll time as the resident troll has awakened from his slumber... so I'll bow out. I don't have the energy for that mess anymore.

The original article posted on which this thread is based discusses the entire conditions and circumstances surrounding this "contract cancellation" is based was part of the very nature of the thread from the very beginning. Anyone with a brain fully understands that. I understand why you wish to now act like it wasn't in some hopes you're fooling someone because that part of the topic does not suit your narrative.

Thanks for playing. As a consolation prize I will send you a home version of the game.

Here is what you responded to and how you responded to it. Now you claim that was never a part of our discussion.

To stick to this point - we actually don't know what is being threatened and how this is working. If the threat is to cancel the contract at the end of the current agreed upon deal - then really there is no harm, no foul. If the threat is to cancel the contract mid-term - that would be a breach and no doubt subject to legal repercussions. But even then - we don't know all the clauses and terms of the contract. Assuming that it is automatically one or the other without detailed knowledge would be wrong.

My perspective - seeing how Trump illegally removed a sitting foreign leader. How he has illegally or highly questionably manipulated fake claims about various "crisis" to justify things like Tariffs and fatal boat strikes on alleged drug runners, including a second strike to kill a person already prevented from running drugs .... I'd say the idea we should simply accept anything and everything this administration says and does and wants to do without checks, balances and oversight is really really stoopid.

I just have a problem with our own Government being a bully.. I know it's not the first time, but I hope it's the last time. Pretty sure that under this regime, it won't be.

MAGA = PPS

One more time.

Military contracts can be cancelled at any time.

Since 1861.

And once again this is totally false.

The question isn't simply "can the government cancel a contract". The question is can the government use the cancellation of a contract to try and force the contractor to change the parameters and make them adapt their product for uses it was never intended for in the first place.

Those are not the same thing and that has been the question all along. The ability to cancel a contract and being some type of legal grounds to tell a contractor "Change your product to do what we want with it or else" are two different things. The U.S government was not intended to have the ability to use its power like the Mafia.

Yes.

Someone asked me to opine on this, so I will quickly chime in and then be on my merry way so as not to disrupt the squabbling.

By the letter of the law, FATE is technically correct. The modern day codified version of this is known as Termination For Convenience, or what we in the actual business call T4C:

https://www.acquisition.gov/far/52.249-2

The clause above is an example for FFP contracts. It goes wider than that, and the DFARS has its own supplemental prescriptions as well. It is all a flowdown of the past 150 years of precedent put into code.

The spirit of the law is a different story. The point behind T4C is the rapidly changing environment that often comes with Defense. For instance, if you are in a war and you have have production contracts for transport vehicles, but then the war ends, you want to be able to terminate the production of those vehicles as they are no longer needed. Same thing happens for weapons, materiel, etc. that becomes obsolete due to the changing nature of warfare and defense. That is essentially terminating because it is no longer convenient or valuable for the taxpayer to keep buying something that is no longer of value.

I have done tens of billions of dollars in defense acquisitions over the last fifteen years, and I have an unlimited warrant. Unless it pertains to a compelling regulatory or legal requirement for something like ITAR, or avoiding things like counterfeit parts manufactured by adversaries, I have never seen it where we (DoD) mandate a SOW/PRD/clause contract modification and use termination for convenience or termination for default as a stick for a contractor to accept our unilateral modification terms.

T4C is also not that simple. It is a mini-acquisition in and of itself if you read the clause language in the link above. The Government will have to negotiate what costs/profit the contractor is entitled to work and the costs/profit related to any work the Contractor still has to undergo to shut down production or performance. One of the T4C considerations is "What did we get for all the money we sunk?" that has to be a valid consideration for any contracting officer performing the termination. Depending on the complexity of the effort, T4C can take a long time. It's definitely not always a quick kill.

Carry on.

QFT

The whole thing is hilarious. Presidents and military leaders have been cancelling or changing the terms of contracts for ages. For billions and billions and billions of dollars.

Rumsfeld and Bush probably cancelled about $50 billion worth. Gates and Obama scrapped a $160 billion right out of the gate. Hell, Obama personally cancelled a $13 billion Presidential Helicopter and said it had too many gadgets.

You're whining about something that has been the absolute norm since the beginning of government contracts. Anyone that has ever signed one understands this.

What makes it even more ironic is that this one is for a mere $200 million and the "supplier" doesn't even provide a real product. And this tech has changed faster than any tech in the history of humans; it should be no surprise that the intentions for its use might change as well.

So, you're right (for a change)... downright, knee-slapping hilarious.

Thank you. Someone who has extensive experience and actually knows what they're talking about. As such you've never seen anything like this before.

While you have a lot more knowledge than I do this part of your post is what I was referring to when I mentioned The Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950...........


Now that I've heard from someone who actually knows and understand this I'll ignore the uninformed noise in the room.

lmao He didn't dispute anything I said. But if that makes you feel better as a means to bow out of a conversation after you got served your lunch. So be it!

What conversation? You haven't tried to hold a conversation on here for a long time now.


That's pretty simple coming from someone that has actual experience in the field. At that point I would have thought even you could man up and admit that ends the conversation. I suppose I should have known better.