U.S. big tech employees such as Google and OpenAI also submitted to the court an amicus brief supporting Anthropic’s lawsuit, and the conflict between the government and Anthropic is expanding across the information technology (IT) industry.
Anthropic filed a lawsuit in the U.S. federal law in Northern California against 18 federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, and senior officials in the administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Anthropic reportedly asked the court to confirm that it designated it as a supply chain risk company and that U.S. President Donald Trump’s guidelines banning the use of Anthropic Artificial Intelligence (AI) to federal agencies were unconstitutional.
According to Bloomberg News, Anthropic wrote in its complaint that “such a move is unprecedented and illegal,” adding that “the company’s business is threatened (by designation of a supply chain risk company).” “The constitution does not allow the government to use its enormous power to infringe on a company’s freedom of expression,” he said. It is argued that the U.S. government is discriminating by unilaterally prohibiting contracts with federal agencies just because they have different views.
Voices supporting Anthropic in Silicon Valley are growing louder. More than 30 employees of big tech such as Google and OpenAI, including Jeff Dean, chief scientist of Google DeepMind, submitted legal influencers to the court to support Anthropic’s lawsuit shortly after the lawsuit was filed. The legal advice is an opinion submitted to the court by a group that is not directly involved in the lawsuit but has an interest in the matter. The document contained the opinion that “the government’s actions are inappropriate and arbitrary abuse of power, and they seriously affect our industry.”
Earlier, the U.S. Department of Defense and Anthropic had a conflict over the weaponization of AI. The Defense Department asked Anthropic to give Anthropic the authority to use AI for “all legal purposes,” but Anthropic insisted that its AI cannot be used for surveillance of the public and weapons of self-destruction. The government designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk company because it threatened national security.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
