2.27.26

The Day Anthropic Made History

Anthropic Said No

No to mass surveillance. No to autonomous weapons.Even when it cost them everything.

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Dario Amodei speaks to CBS News.

In Their Own Words

What Anthropic’s CEO actually said.

anthropic://statement
“We cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”“In a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”“Mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values. AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties.”“Frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons.”— Dario Amodei, CEO of AnthropicStatement on discussions with the Department of War · Feb 26, 2026

What Happened

The hardest ethical stand in AI history.

The Contract

Anthropic held a $200 million Pentagon contract to deploy Claude for national security. They proactively served the Department of War and the intelligence community.

The Demand

The Pentagon demanded unrestricted access — including for mass surveillance of American citizens and fully autonomous weapons with no human in the loop.

The Stand

Anthropic drew two red lines. They said no. Not to serving the military — to these two specific uses that threaten democratic values. They forfeited hundreds of millions in revenue.

The Retaliation

Trump banned Anthropic from all government use. Hegseth designated them a “supply chain risk to national security” — a label normally reserved for adversarial nations like China.

The Hypocrisy

Hours later, OpenAI struck a deal with the Pentagon. With the exact same red lines. The Pentagon accepted from OpenAI what they punished Anthropic for demanding. This isn’t a policy dispute. It’s punishment for saying no first.

The Official Response

Straight from Anthropic.

The World Responds

People are paying attention.

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