from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Thursday, March 5th.

So let's talk about a standoff in the war that's not between the U.S. and Iran. You may have heard this, you may have not

heard this. It's between the U.S. and the artificial intelligence company Anthropic. Now,

Anthropic has certain ethical guidelines that it tries to abide by and its AI product known as

Claude. They want to adhere to these ethical standards, even though they are a

defense contractor voluntarily doing business with the Pentagon. This is a war-specific dispute, yes,

but it also raises questions for so much of the growing use of artificial intelligence in so many

parts of society and so many aspects of our lives.

But on this specific story, here's where the drama began.

Last July, Anthropic became the first AI company to receive a contract with the Department

of War, or still Department of Defense, if you prefer.

In this contract, Anthropic was granted national security clearances,

which allowed Claude to be used on the military's classified networks,

making it the first AI model ever to operate at that level.

But paked into that contract was a catch.

Anthropic's own terms of service, which prohibit Claude from being used in autonomous weapon systems, we'll explain what that means, or for the mass

surveillance of American citizens. You probably know what that means. The clause is now at the

center of a standoff that has put the

company's entire relationship with the federal government at risk and is even raising new

questions about possible abuse of power by Trump and Secretary Pete Hexeth. Let's discuss.

With me now is Stephen Levy, editor at large for Wired. He wrote an article called AI Safety and the

War Machine just before the U.S. launched this war. Now it's doubly relevant. Stephen, thanks for

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