Many tech companies in the US seem to be eager to curry favor with US President Donald Trump. It’s not surprising given that various Trump policies have a direct impact on the bottom line for many of these firms. However, one company that doesn’t seem to be quite as willing to play ball is Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, and whose CEO has recently spoken up against various decisions made by Trump.
Anthropic AI speaks up against Trump
For starters, Anthropic isn’t so keen on allowing its AI models to be used by law enforcement , which hasn’t earned them many friends within the Trump administration. The company has reportedly declined requests by contractors working for federal law enforcement agencies to use its AI for some tasks. This includes the surveillance of US citizens.
How does this differ against other AI companies? Take for instance, OpenAI. The company’s policy says that it prohibits the use of its AI models for “unauthorized monitoring of individuals.” This could be taken to mean that if an official request came from law enforcement, they would allow it.
It’s quite an interesting turn of events. Before Trump took office for the first time in 2016, this would have been unheard of. Many companies have resisted the US government’s request for data on its users. Apple even famously rejected the FBI’s request to install a backdoor in iOS. But fast forward to today, clever legal wording makes it sound like these companies are interested in protecting your privacy. But in reality, it’s a very different story.
Not a fan of the government’s chip policy
In addition to preventing law enforcement from using its AI models for certain things, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, also criticized some of the Trump administration’s policies . This includes the government’s policy on chip sales to China. The Trump administration initially restricted chip sales to China.
However, they later reversed course and allowed NVIDIA and AMD to sell chips to China . According to Amodei, “Imagine you were to plop down a country of geniuses and put it under the control of one of the existing states, you were to put under the control of the United States of America, or you would put it under the control of China or Russia.”
He adds, “I think the world would go in very different directions if you did these two things. And I think we have a strong interest in the interest of this country, and I would argue in the interest of humanity, that it should be here and not there. Chips are the single ingredient where we most have an advantage.”
