Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
AI in full focus this morning. The standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon over military safeguards is ramping up. The tech giant facing a deadline today to accept conditions or be blacklisted. The Anthropic CEO Dario Emodi saying in a statement, quote these threats do not change our position. We cannot in good conscience to see to their request. The US Undersecretary of Defense and Mil Michael, responding to the statement, calling Emodi a liar with a God complex. The under
Secretary joins US now for more. Under Secretary Michael, Welcome to the program, Sir. Calling someone a liar is pretty strong language. What's he like about?
Well, what happened is we've been negotiating in good faith on the Department of Warside for about three months, and we're working pretty diligently, and we sent over a proposal that we thought made a lot of concessions to the language that Anthropic wanted, and then, you know, without any notice, they published an article where we thought we were getting close, saying that they were breaking off talks well before the deadline,
which is generally not good partner oriented practice. If you will so mail.
This is what they're asking for as far as we understand, and let me share this with the audience. It doesn't want its technology use for surveillments of US citizens or for autonomous lethal strikes without a human in the loop. That's the ask. What were the concessions.
Yeah, the concessions are pretty simple. We agreed in writing to ensure that the Department of was following all laws and regulations, including the National Security Act of nineteen forty seven, the PIZ Act, and all other applicable laws and regulations, because mass surveillance of Americans is already illegal, so we were offering to put all of that language and affirm
that we were following all laws in the contract. When it comes to autonomous weapons, similarly, we said we'll follow all laws, including a DoD Directive that's been in place for years that governs how we would use any such weapons. And then we affirmed that there would be human oversight over all kinds of every kind of part of the development process or engagement process or use about Thomas weapons.
And he didn't like the word I guess as appropriate at the end of that sentence, But we believe we've we conceded to all their substantive demands. So it was surprising that out of nowhere they'd cut off negotiations.
So it appears that your differences are actually minor. Would that be accurate?
Yeah, That's what was surprising is usually if your differences are minor, you get in a room, you try to hash them out, and instead, without any notice, you know, publishes something about his conscience and then doesn't engage. And it was difficult to understand why because we were working pretty diligently on this, and we were at the final stages of few words here or there where we agreed
to what they wanted so in substance. So it was very surprising given that we negotiate with hundreds of technology companies and this is the only one we've ever had that behavior from.
Are you still weighing using the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to basically have to use its product or potential? You're weighing still making it a supply chain risk, which we heard from anthropics say that this is almost contradictory proposals.
They're two different things, and I think depending on how today goes. At five o'clock, the Secretary of warpete Hexeth gets to make the decision on how to reply. I've maintained my openness to continue dialogue through that deadline. But they've seem to have launched sort of a pr campaign that was planned well before these negotiations sort of restarted on Tuesday. So I don't know. Their behavior is frankly unpredictable. I'm not sure what to expect.
So do you plan them having more talks today or is a decision just need to be made by today.
I offered more talks if so long as they're in good faith. We're always open to talks. And we set a deadline, and we meant the deadline, and up until that deadline, I'm open to more talks and I told them so.
So what does happen at five to ZHO one today? If there's no agreement between the DoD and Anthropic.
That's up Secretary Hegseeth. We have some courses of action that he's considering. And ultimately this comes down to the war fighter, right. It comes down to for any AI system we might use, are we using it to protect
our war fighters in the right way? Are we using it to sort of give them the best tools to be efficient and to be lethal when they have to be lethal, and that's the primary thing in Secretary hess head, and we told them that Ultimately, at the end of the day, we fall all the law, all laws, but we can't let any one company stand between us and the war fighter because they don't make the rules. Congress makes the roles, the presidents signed them, We execute them, and we do so safely.
Well, speaking of the President, has he weighed in on this specifically? Has there been discussions with him? And Secretary Hegseth and yourself as well?
This has all been internal to the Department of War so far, okay?
And then when it comes to potentially the other AI negotiations underway, What is going on right now with XAI and to get grock on classified networks.
Well, we I think the smart approach when I came in at the Department of War about nine months ago and looked at what we were using AI for, and it was some pretty minimal use cases. And given the power of the technology, the potential power to do good for the US military both from an efficiency standpoint and a strength standpoint, I wanted to make sure we have
a lot of options. So we went around and we've launched Google for unclassified networks, We've signed XAI for classified and non classified networks, and we want to continue to provide options to all of our components here at DOOW, and that's what we'll continue to do. And it's just smart to have more than one option so that we can see the strengths and weaknesses of each model and learn from them as the AI revolution begins here.
Under Secretary Michael is lethal autonomy really so critical for future national security?
It is. I mean, if you think about it from a defense standpoint, whether it's a drone swarm that's coming out a military base, whether it's a hybersonic missile coming out the United States, where the reaction time against the sort of how many weapons are coming at you you want to take them, be able to take them down potentially faster than a human could alone. If that's how
it's done. And we're learning from the Russian Ukraine War with the drone swarms and so on, and with the new weapons that have been developed all over the world that change the name of war, the game of warfare, that we've got to respond and defend ourselves in any way we can. The question is do you have a human on a loop to make sure that we're monitoring
these systems? And that's what we proposed in writing in language, that we always have human oversight over these things, but they're necessary given what's happening in the world.
Clearly, the technology these companies are producing is tremendously powerful. Yeah, you believe this individual is both a liar and has a god complex. How concerned should the American public be about individuals like this running companies like this if that's what you believe this person is.
Yeah, I think there's some concern that you know, when you have leaders of some of these companies talking about unemploying seventy million Americans, the lawsuits they're under for scraping content from content publishers and having billion dollar lawsuits against them using that content to make profits. And then really what's concerning is making their own policies that sort of and could sit on top of democratic policies that are voted on by the people, passed by Congress, signed by
the President. You do have to worry about are they taking it too far? Are they trying to do and impose their own views on the American people in an undemocratic way, so, I think those things are going to be things we're grappling with in society for the next several years as these companies get bigger and bigger.
We're looking forward to having a conversation with you, sir. Thanks for making time for us this morning. Meil Mark there, the under Secretary of Defense,