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Despite an ultimatum from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Anthropic said that it can't "in good conscience" comply with a Pentagon edict to remove guardrails on its AI, CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a blog post. The Department of Defense had threatened to cancel a $200 million contract and label Anthropic a "supply chain risk" if it didn't agree to remove safeguards over mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. "Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters with our two requested safeguards in place," Amodei said. "We remain ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States." In response, US Under Secretary of Defense Emil Michael accused Amodei in a post on X of wanting "nothing more than to try to personally control the US military and is OK putting our nation's safety at risk." The standoff began when the Pentagon demanded that Anthropic its Claude AI product available for "all lawful purposes" including mass surveillance and the development of fully autonomous weapons that can kill without human supervision. Anthropic refused to offer its tech for those things, even with a "safety stack" built into that model. Yesterday, Axios reported that Hegseth gave Anthropic a deadline of 5:01 PM on Friday to agree to the Pentagon's terms. At the same time, the DoD requested an assessment of its reliance on Claude, an initial step toward potentially labelling Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" a designation usually reserved for firms from adversaries like China and "never before applied to an American company," Anthropic wrote. Amodei declined to change his stance and stated that if the Pentagon chose to offboard Anthropic, "we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations or other critical missions." Grok is one of the other providers the DoD is reportedly considering, along with Google's Gemini and OpenAI. It may not be that simple for the military to disentangle itself from Claude, however. Up until now, Anthropic's model has been the only one allowed for the military's most sensitive tasks in intelligence, weapons development and battlefield operations. Claude was reportedly used in the Venezuelan raid in which the US military exfiltrated the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife. AI companies have been widely criticized for potential harm to users, but mass surveillance and weapons development would clearly take that to a new level. Anthropic's potential reply to the Pentagon was seen as a test of its claim to be the most safety-forward AI company, particularly after dropping its flagship safety pledge a few days ago. Now that Amodei has responded, the focus will shift to the Pentagon to see if it follows through on its threats, which could seriously harm Anthropic. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-refuses-to-bow-to-pentagon-despite-hegseths-threats-085553126.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
On March 8th, AI-powered app builder Lovable is making its platform entirely free for 24 hours to mark International Women's Day.The initiative, dubbed SheBuilds and offered in partnership with Anthropic and Stripe, pairs free platform access to Lovable with USD 100 in Claude API credits and USD 250 in Stripe fee credits per participant. It's a package designed to remove the financial friction that might keep aspiring builders from experimenting. Over 30 community-hosted events across 17 countries will offer in-person support from experienced users, while an online track connects participants globally through Lovable's Discord server.Lovable is a "vibe coding" platform, a tool that lets users describe what they want in plain language to generate functional web applications without requiring traditional coding skills. Why it's a good match for Women's Day? The persistent gender gap in tech. Women make up roughly a quarter of the global tech workforce and an even smaller share of technical and leadership roles.By stripping away both the cost barrier and the coding prerequisite, SheBuilds is essentially proposing a shortcut around the traditional tech route one that sidesteps gatekeeping and asks: what would you build if technical barriers didn't exist? (As coding automation ramps up at smoldering speeds, it's uncertain what "tech work" will even mean in a year or two. Areas where women already perform strongly, like product thinking, user empathy, problem framing and communication, might actually become more valuable.)TREND BITESheBuilds is part of a broader shift in how to approach inclusion moving from symbolic gestures toward initiatives that hand people tangible tools and agency. Rather than hosting a panel discussion or releasing a branded social post, Lovable is betting that the most empowering thing it can do is get its product into more hands and let the results speak for themselves. Access, not just awareness, drives change. Takeaway for other brands: pair a cause with some genuine utility for outcomes that extend well beyond a day on the calendar.
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Marketing and Advertising
For anyone who has been following the soap opera unfolding between Netflix and Paramount Skydance over the past few months in their financial brinksmanship to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the saga may be nearing its end. Today, WBD said its board of directors have determined that the latest offer from Paramount Skydance amounted to the better proposal. The media outfit gave Netflix four business days to match Paramount's terms, but the streamer didn't waste any time in declining to raise its own bid. "We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.' iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs in the US," the statement from Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said. "But this transaction was always a 'nice to have' at the right price, not a 'must have' at any price." In addition to the purchase price of $31 per WBD share, Paramount's latest offer also included a provision that it would cover the $2.8 billion termination fee that WBD would owe to Netflix for dissolving the existing merger agreement between the businesses. So rather than paying $82.7 billion to acquire the Warner Bros. part of the operation, it appears Netflix may walk away with no new content but padding its coffers with an extra nearly $3 billion. After Netflix's initial offer, Paramount Skydance swooped in with a hostile takeover attempt of the entire Warner Bros. Discovery business. WBD rejected it, Paramount tried again. Several additional volleys between the involved parties occurred over the past few weeks. While WBD has not yet formally accepted Paramount's offer which will be subject to long-winded regulatory approvals sure to spark more drama it seems the dust will soon settle for this chapter.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/netflix-backs-out-of-warner-bros-discovery-bidding-war-233117188.html?src=rss
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