Technical staff urges DOD, Congress to de-label Anthropic as a supply chain threat

Hundreds of tech workers have signed up an open letter urging the Department of Defense to remove its designation of Anthropic as a “supply threat.” The letter also calls on Congress to intervene and “assess whether the use of these extraordinary powers against an American technology company is justified.”

The letter includes signatories from major technology and enterprise companies including OpenAI, Slack, IBM, Cursor, Salesforce Ventures, and more. It follows a Conflict between DOD and Anthropic after the AI ​​lab last week refused to serve in the army unlimited access to its AI systems.

Anthropic’s two red lines in its negotiations with the Pentagon were that it did not want its technology to be used to spy on Americans or to use autonomous weapons that made decisions to target and fire without a human. The DOD said it had no plans to do any of those things, but didn’t believe it should be limited by vendor regulations.

In response to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s refusal to deny Hegseth’s threats, President Donald Trump on Friday ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology after six months. Hegseth said he made good on his threat by designating Anthropic a tax liability — a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries who would recruit an AI company to avoid working with any agency or company that does business with the Pentagon.

In a post on FridayHegseth wrote: “Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military will do any business with Anthropic.”

But the note on X doesn’t just make Anthropic a public threat. The government must complete a potential impact assessment and notify Congress so that veterans do not cross a relationship with Anthropic or its products. Anthropic said in a blog post the destination is “legally untenable” and that it “would negate any threat of discovery in a court of law.”

Many in the industry see management’s handling of Anthropic as brutal and clear retaliation.

“When two parties cannot agree on a cause, the best way is to separate and work with the competition,” the open letter reads. Punishing an American company for refusing to accept contract changes sends a clear message to every tech company in America: accept whatever the government wants, or pay it back.

Beyond concerns about government abuse of Anthropic, many in the industry are concerned about the government’s potential and use of AI for nefarious purposes.

Boaz Barak, an OpenAI researcher, he wrote in a social media post On Monday that preventing governments from using AI for mass surveillance is his “red line” and “should be all ours.”

Shortly after Trump publicly attacked Anthropic, OpenAI made the announcement he got a deal for its colors to be delivered to designated DOD locations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last week that the company has similar red lines to Anthropic.

“If anything good can come out of last week’s events, it would be if we in the AI ​​industry begin to address the problem of using AI to abuse the government and view its people as a serious threat,” Barak said. “We’ve done a good job of identifying, mitigating, and strategy, for threats like weapons and cyber security. Let’s use similar strategies here.”