The gap between the speed of development in artificial intelligence and the strength of governance has always been worrying. The extraordinary standoff between Anthropic and the US government suggests it is getting worse. It is being used right now to select bombing targets in Iran and to process intelligence at a scale no human analyst could match. The designation, unprecedented for an American company, is a significant act of economic coercion against a private firm. Anthropic’s main competitor, OpenAI, then stepped in within hours to sign its own deal with the Pentagon, claiming to have secured the same protections Anthropic could not.

Source: The Irish Times March 13, 2026 08:01 UTC