Does Trump want to wage an AI-powered war?

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.2 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

In the past three months, Donald Trump’s White House has reportedly used AI twice to effect regime change – once in its capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and more recently to help plan the strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The most recent strikes coincided with the end of the Pentagon’s relationship with the AI company Anthropic over concerns its AI tool Claude was being used for purposes the company had explicitly prohibited. The government swiftly signed a new contract with Open AI. To find out what this means for the use of AI in forthcoming conflicts, Madeleine Finlay speaks to technology journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. He explains why he thinks this moment represents a dangerous turning point.. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:11.5	On Saturday, the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing the country's supreme leader.
0:18.4	Iranian state media has confirmed its supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini has been killed in his
0:24.2	compound after the US and Israel engaged in large-scale strikes across Iran.
0:30.3	Reportedly helping to inform the attack was clawed, the artificial intelligence model from
0:35.9	Anthropic.
0:41.9	This was despite an announcement just a few hours earlier from Donald Trump,
0:45.8	ordering the government to stop using Anthropics technology.
0:51.4	Posting on Truth Social, he denounced left-wing nut jobs at Anthropic and said the US wouldn't allow a radical left woke company to dictate
0:56.0	how the military fights its wars. It marked the end of a battle between the AI company and
1:03.3	the Pentagon over exactly how Claude should be employed and where the ethical and moral lines
1:09.0	should be drawn.
1:18.1	So today, are we at a turning point for the use of AI in warfare?
1:31.8	From The Guardian, I'm Madeleine Finley, and this is Science Weekly. Chris Stoker Walker, you're a technology journalist.
1:35.2	You've very kindly snuck away from the conference you're at to discuss the opinion
1:38.9	piece you've just written for The Guardian.
1:41.1	About the dangerous moment we've reached when it comes to the militarisation of
1:46.3	artificial intelligence and where it might go next. This all revolves around a fight between
1:52.7	the US Department of War and the AI company Anthropics. So give me the background here.
1:59.2	Yeah, we have to wind our way back to July 2025,
2:03.0	where Anthropic won a two-year contract to develop frontier AI capabilities for the Pentagon,
2:09.7	including specifically national security uses.
	...

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