US Gov Agencies Drop Anthropic for OpenAI
Multiple US cabinet-level agencies, including State, Treasury, and Health and Human Services, are phasing out Anthropic's AI tools in favor of OpenAI. The switch follows a White House preference for platforms with “amended surveillance limits.” Amid backlash, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted the initial Pentagon deal “looked opportunistic and sloppy.”
The breakdown in talks between Anthropic and the Pentagon centered on the AI company's insistence on contractual "red lines" against mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon, seeking the ability to use the technology for "all lawful purposes," refused to embed these specific restrictions into the contract. Following the impasse, the Trump administration directed all federal agencies to cease using Anthropic's technology, designating the company a "supply-chain risk." This designation could prevent other government contractors, including Anthropic's cloud providers like Google and Amazon, from doing business with the AI firm. Hours after the directive against Anthropic, OpenAI announced its own deal with the Pentagon to deploy its models in classified environments. OpenAI stated its agreement includes "firm guardrails" that align with Anthropic's principles, prohibiting mass surveillance and the direction of autonomous weapons. However, critics and legal experts note that OpenAI's contractual language appears to offer little more than adherence to existing law, which may have loopholes regarding mass data collection and what constitutes "human control" over weapons systems. This has led to accusations that OpenAI's deal is more about optics than substantive ethical constraints. The rapid sequence of events has sparked significant backlash, with many users on social media platforms announcing they are canceling their ChatGPT subscriptions. In response to the criticism, Anthropic's Claude AI saw a surge in downloads, briefly topping the Apple App Store charts above ChatGPT. The dispute highlights a larger conflict over who controls the ethical boundaries of powerful AI systems—the private companies developing the technology or the government agencies deploying it. It also surfaces during a broader push by the White House to create a national framework for AI regulation, aiming to preempt varying state laws and remove barriers to U.S. leadership in the field.
