Anthropic has won a round against the Pentagon after a judge ruled that the Pentagon’s punishment of the company was rather illegal.
US district judge Rita Lin ruled that the Pentagon had acted unlawfully by labelling the AI outfit a supply chain risk.
According to Associated Press the fight began in February, when US president Donald Trump and defence secretary Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of endangering national security.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei refused to back down over fears that the company’s products could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous armed drones.
Lin wrote that the government’s actions “were based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its ‘arrogance’ in criticising the government, not based on any articulable basis to believe that Anthropic would actually sabotage its model.”
An Anthropic spokesperson said: “We remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”
In her 59-page ruling, Lin said neither the Constitution nor the federal statute used by the government allowed it to “impose sweeping penalties based principally on Anthropic’s critique of the Administration’s views.”
Anthropic sued the Pentagon in March, calling the designation an “unlawful campaign of retaliation” for refusing unrestricted military use of its technology. The row has turned into a public scrap about AI in warfare and mass surveillance. ChatGPT maker OpenAI signed a Pentagon deal hours after Anthropic was punished.
At a 30 July hearing, Lin said the government’s position was “really troubling” and “at odds with the First Amendment.” Anthropic lawyer Michael Mongan said the government’s actions “profoundly harm Anthropic” and “threaten more broadly to chill speech and debate on a very important issue.”
