The Pentagon bans the AI ​​Claude, which flies up the charts

At the center of the conflict lies Anthropic’s firmness in denying the Pentagon the use of its technology for two specific purposes: the development of lethal autonomous weapons without human supervision and the implementation of mass surveillance programs. While on the one hand the Pentagon claims that the startup’s claims of control take away decision-making powers from the State in favor of a private entity, on the other hand the company did not consider government reassurances regarding compliance with its own ethical “red lines” sufficient. The conflict finally degenerated last Thursday, when Anthropic’s refusal to bow to Washington’s demands pushed the Department of Defense to activate the exclusion procedure.

The consequences of the directive signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could have a systemic impact on the entire military technology ecosystem. Hegseth said any company doing business with Anthropic, even outside of government contracts, risks having its defense contracts canceled. This broad interpretation of the rule, deemed illegal by Amodei’s company, aims to isolate Anthropic from the market of large state suppliers, imposing a six-month deadline for the definitive removal of Claude from federal servers.

However, the actual application of the ban appears paradoxical in light of recent war operations. Some reports indicate that Claude’s enhanced intelligence tools were instrumental in the success of last weekend’s missile attack against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The difficulty of quickly replacing a technology that has already proven fundamental to the operational effectiveness of the armed forces raises doubts about the sustainability of the hard line adopted by the Pentagon and the possible repercussions for national security in the short term.

Despite Claude’s classification as a national security risk, AI adoption among everyday users has reached never-before-seen peaks, with new daily sign-ups records recorded in all territories where the service has been operating since the start of last week. AppFigures data confirms this global trend, placing the app firmly at the top of the App Store rankings for free and AI categories in dozens of countries, including the United States, Canada and much of Europe.