Neural Newscast

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is pressing Anthropic to allow unrestricted military use of its AI technology, according to an AP report, raising a stark dispute over ethics, surveillance, and autonomy in warfare. The report says Hegseth gave CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to open access or risk losing a Pentagon contract, with officials also warning of steps like a supply-chain risk designation or use of the Defense Production Act. Amodei, the AP report says, held firm on two red lines: no fully autonomous military targeting operations and no domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens. The clash lands as the Pentagon builds its internal network, GenAI.mil, and after it awarded contracts last summer to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s xAI. In Germany, a court in Cologne issued a temporary injunction preventing the domestic intelligence agency from calling the Alternative für Deutschland a “right-wing extremist” group until the court reaches a final decision. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel called it a major victory. The BBC reports the AfD won 152 seats with 20.8% of the vote in last year’s federal election.