Explaining Autonomous Lethal Weapons

Away from the war in Iran, the Pentagon is engaged in another battle, with Anthropic and its AI chatbot Claude. After awarding the company a contract potentially worth $200 million last year to integrate their artificial intelligence into the Department of Defence’s classified systems, that relationship has ended with a lawsuit and a threat which puts the future of Anthropic in jeopardy.

Anthropic says it cannot acquiesce to the government’s demand that it breaches its own ‘red lines’ in how its technology is used. The company insists it cannot be used for mass surveillance of US citizens nor in lethal weapons that are operated without human oversight. It has filed lawsuits against the Pentagon.

Justin and Marianna speak to Dean Ball, Trump’s former AI adviser who helped devise much of the Trump administration’s AI policy, about Anthropic’s position and why he thinks the Pentagon have gone too far. They also discuss the controversy around domestic surveillance and how policy makers still do not fully understand how AI technology actually works.

Presenter: Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter and Marianna Spring, social media investigations senior correspondent Producer: Purvee Pattni, Ben Carter and Alix Pickles Sound engineer: Michael Regaard Editor: Sam Bonham

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