Why the Pentagon Wants to Destroy Anthropic
3/6/20261 hr 10 min
Last Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that he was breaking the Pentagon’s contract with the A.I. company Anthropic and would declare the company a supply chain risk — a designation for companies so dangerous, they can’t exist anywhere in the U.S. military supply chain. What makes this so wild is the military is still using Anthropic’s A.I. system right now. They reportedly used it during the raid to capture Maduro in Venezuela, and are now using it in the war in Iran.
This story raises so many questions: Why does the government think Anthropic is so dangerous? How exactly is the government using A.I. right now? How do they want to use A.I.? And who should ultimately control this powerful and uncertain technology?
Dean Ball is a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and the author of the newsletter Hyperdimensional. He served as a senior policy adviser on A.I. for the Trump White House and was the primary staff writer of their A.I. action plan. But he’s been furious at the Trump administration for how it has been handling the conflict with Anthropic. So I wanted to have him on the show to explain why.
Mentioned:
“Hyperdimensional" by Dean Ball
“What if Dario Amodei Is Right About A.I.?” The Ezra Klein Show
“Stratechery” by Ben Thompson
Book Recommendations:
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays by Michael Oakeshott
Empire Of Liberty by Gordon S. Wood
Roll, Jordan, Roll by Eugene D. Genovese
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
We gave Times employees a preview of Crossplay from New York Times Games, and here's what they had to say.
Ezra Klein· Host0:05
I can finally play with other people. I'm pretty competitive. It's fun to beat friends and coworkers.
Speaker 00:12
I have a J for ten points.
Dario Amodei· Soundbite0:14
I'm guessing Tenga is not a word. Let's see. Tenga is a word. Oh.
Ezra Klein· Host0:19
As an English as a second language speaker, I like to learn new words.
Speaker 00:23
New York Times Game subscribers get full access to Crossplay, our first two-player word game. Subscribe now for a special offer on all of our games.
Ezra Klein· Host0:32
[upbeat music] So right now, everyone is thinking about Iran, but there is this story happening around it that I think we need to not lose sight of because it's about not just how we are fighting this war, but how we're gonna be fighting all wars going forward. On Friday of last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that he was breaking the government's contract with the AI company Anthropic. And not just that, he intended