If we want powerful AI systems to respect liberty, now is the time to train them to be more libertarian.
reason.com
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One of America's top AI companies—Anthropic—refused to sign off on a contract unless the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) promised not to use its technology to power autonomous killer robots or carry out domestic mass surveillance. So, the Pentagon accused it of trying to undermine U.S. sovereignty by dictating how we fight our wars.
Defense Undersecretary Emil Michael put it plainly in a March 2026 interview on CNBC's Squawk Box: "We realized we are dependent on this one provider who wants to insert their policy preferences in the middle of an operation."
Anthropic sued the Pentagon for labeling it a "supply chain threat," a designation that would have forced a slew of major companies (Amazon, Google, and Nvidia among them) to cut off their business ties. This would have been disastrous for one of America's leading AI companies.
The issue is being worked out in court and closed-door negotiations, but whatever happens, we can expect more high-stakes battles between the U.S. government and Silicon Valley over who controls a technology that is transforming not just warfare but the entire global economy.
AI's potential for mass surveillance and autonomous warfare is scary, but just because a technology has a dark side doesn't mean it should be stopped. A 19th-century cartoon inveighing against electricity depicted the corpse of a Western Union lineman "falling into the tangle of wire…and smoldering for the better part of an hour" as a crowd looked on in horror. Thank god we didn't enact a moratorium on this "unrestrained demon" back in 1889.
But Anthropic was right to raise red flags about how the government could use AI to spy on its citizens or kill innocent people.
"I think we should build artificial superintelligence and I think it should live in private hands," Ball says. The alternative—a world where regulation is so heavy that only the government can use it—"implies a power differential between the government and the people that I just think we'll never recover from. It's a monopoly on production rather than a monopoly on violence. And it's a monopoly on information and expression.…It is quite possible that my information environment would be structured by a corrupt artificial superintelligence that works for the government and not me. And that's not good either."
The egg has already hatched. Pretty soon the owl could soar to new heights, achieving what its most enthusiastic boosters and fearful critics alike predict—unprecedented capabilities and, if all goes well, wealth, health, and well-being. Let it be encoded with values that promote and protect human liberty, dignity, and flourishing above all else.
Producer: Zach Weissmueller
Video editor: John Osterhoudt
Graphics: Lex Villena