I don’t often get into national issues in this blog, but this is something that impacts all Americans, including those of us who live in Los Angeles. Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has come under pressure by the US government to allow the use of its technology for mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons. While both are a concern, in this post I’m going to focus on the surveillance issue.

Anthropic seems to have been the first AI company cleared by the US government for use in handling classified information. This came about through its partnership with Palantir, a defense contractor which works with the Pentagon. When this partnership began, Anthropic stressed that its large language model Claude should not be used for surveillance of US citizens or to enable lethal autonomous weapons systems. In January of this year, Anthropic became concerned that the Department of Defense had ignored both of these restrictions. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sent a letter outlining his concerns. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded by saying that, unless Anthropic withdrew its objections to the use of Claude for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, the DOD would stop using it and bar Anthropic from receiving further contracts with the Department of Defense. On Thursday, Anthropic issued a statement saying it would reject these demands. Today President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using all artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic.

Now, the first question I’m asking is, Why does the Department of Defense need to do mass surveillance of US citizens? If there’s reason to suspect that a US citizen might be a threat, the government already has the power to conduct surveillance, but only after it has presented evidence of the threat and received a warrant. Concerns about mass surveillance of US citizens aren’t new. Over the past 20+ years the US government has tried (often successfully) to increase its ability to spy on citizens. There has also been pushback (sometimes successful) from privacy groups, and there are court decisions that have kept checks on the government’s ability to gather information on Americans.

But this is crossing a new line. In this case it appears that the US government is asserting that it has a right to conduct mass surveillance of citizens, and that it will only work with AI companies that are comfortable with that kind of surveillance.

This comes at a time when corporations are gathering more of our data than ever. You’ve probably heard that Ring cameras are being enabled to collect biometric information that would allow identification of people who visit your home. You probably haven’t heard that the City of LA may be issuing a request for proposals for digital kiosks to be placed on city streets, and that at least one of the companies interested in getting the contract allows its kiosks to collect personal information, including your IP address, phone number, geolocation data and biometric information.

In the past, the US government has moved slowly and quietly when expanding its surveillance powers. But now, the US government is stating openly that it wants to use AI to conduct mass surveillance of US citizens.

Years ago, the Chinese government implemented a massive surveillance network. It explicitly told Chinese citizens that they were being watched, and that it could grant or limit opportunities for jobs, education and travel based on the data it collected. At the time, I told myself that the US government would never take such a drastic step. I guess I was wrong.

If you’re concerned about our government using AI to keep us under surveillance, you could always write to the White House to let them know you’re worried.

White House Contact Form