Anthropic filed federal lawsuits against the US Department of Defense on Monday, challenging its designation as a “supply-chain risk,” according to wired.com and techcrunch.com.
According to techcrunch.com, the Claude maker filed two complaints in California and Washington, D.C., after the Pentagon formally sanctioned the company last week. The designation followed a weeks-long dispute over limits on using Anthropic’s AI technology for military applications, including autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of Americans, techcrunch.com reported.
“We do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a blog post on Thursday, according to wired.com.
The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court calls the DOD’s actions “unprecedented and unlawful” and accuses the administration of retaliation, techcrunch.com reported. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” the lawsuit states, according to both sources.
According to wired.com, Anthropic requested a judge reverse the designation and is seeking a temporary restraining order to continue government sales. The company faces potential losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue from federal agencies, wired.com reported. Several Anthropic customers have reportedly said they are pursuing alternatives due to the Defense Department’s risk designation, according to wired.com.