There are enough idiots involved who "heard about this AI thing" that would demand someone make a Claude-based kill bot. Do not underestimate the disconnect from reality of senior military leadership. They easily forget that everyone who works for them are legally obligated to laugh at their jokes.

Anthropic specifically called out systems "that take humans out of the loop entirely and automate selecting and engaging targets".

I take that to mean they don't want the military using Claude to decide who to kill. As a hyperbolic yet frankly realistic example, they don't want Claude to make a mistake and direct the military to kill innocent children accidentally identified as narco-terrorists.

At least, that's the most charitable interpretation of everything going on. I suspect they are also worried that the sitting administration wants to use AI to help them execute a full autocratic takeover of the United States, so they're attempting to kill one of the world's most innovative companies to set an example and pressure other AI labs into letting their technology be used for such purposes.

What do subpoenas have to do with anything?

Where is all the weird misinformation in these comments coming from?

You make a valid point. Dario suggests that DoD wants to have the capacity to do domestic surveillance and autonomous killing. Sean Parnell said the DoD doesn't want those capacities. These statements are in conflict. Them talking past each other is one possibility. Without much evidence except the track record of the Trump administration, I think it is much more likely that Sean Parnell is lying.

The announcement hasn't worked through official legal channels, but Anthropic is taking it seriously. The official channel will be a written explanation to Congress, and could be classified.

Hegseth objected to guardrails being "woke". Something about "curly haired" almost-men telling him how he can use his "war fighters".

I speculate that Trump and Hegseth were both late to the realization that AI could unwind, for example, the next Panama Papers, and are doing this to try to demonstrate power to the industry. Musk tried to explain all this, but they actually encountered him as "autistic". This all looks like a disjointed conversation because we can see slightly more of the future than them.