One of America's top AI companies—Anthropic—refused to sign off on a contract unless the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) promised not to use its technology to power autonomous killer robots or carry out domestic mass surveillance. So, the Pentagon accused it of trying to undermine U.S. sovereignty by dictating how we fight our wars.
Defense Undersecretary Emil Michael put it plainly in a March 2026 interview on CNBC's Squawk Box: "We realized we are dependent on this one provider who wants to insert their policy preferences in the middle of an operation."
