Prof. Alan Rozenshtein Interviewed for Understanding AI About Legality of Anthropic Being Labeled a “Supply-Chain Risk”

Professor Alan Rozenshtein was interviewed by Timothy Lee for Understanding AI about the legality of Anthropic being labeled a “supply-chain risk” by the Defense Department. Last Friday, Anthropic refused demands that it drop contractual terms prohibiting the use of Claude AI for mass surveillance of Americans and the operation of fully autonomous weapons. The supply-chain risk designation could prevent other government contractors from using Anthropic’s products. According to Prof. Rozenshtein, the Trump Administration would face an uphill battle convincing a court to allow this saying the Pentagon was most likely to invoke a 2011 law called Section 3252. That law was intended to be used against foreign companies, and it’s not clear that it even applies to a U.S.-based company like Anthropic. He said, “I’ve been scouring, I’ve had my research assistant scouring, we can’t find anything on this statute. I can’t find it being used.” He added that the Pentagon’s stated rule — that no government contractor may have “any commercial activity” with Anthropic — is far too broad, and if the law applies, it would likely only apply to a company’s work on military contracts.