A US appeals court today approved the Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic technology. Judges decided the US had authority to blacklist Anthropic for withholding certain AI features even if Anthropic had no malicious intent.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling, stating the case raises profoundly difficult questions about the appropriate military uses of an almost unimaginably powerful new technology. The ruling highlighted the risks of both overly constrained and unconstrained AI models in military operations.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth must determine how best to balance the competing risks, the court said. The ruling affirmed that the Secretary did not transgress any limits on his authority under the Supply Chain Security Act or the Constitution.
"We have no quarrel with the Northern District’s conclusion that use of the critical noun adversary, combined with the sinister connotation fairly pervading the string of sabotage, maliciously introduce, and otherwise subvert, indicate that bad motive is required to support a designation under section 3252," the ruling stated.
However, no such bad motive is required to support a designation under the broader definition set forth in section 4713.
The court emphasized that the definition of 'supply chain risk' under 4713 includes any person, not just adversaries, and that the term 'deny' applies to Anthropic preventing the US from using certain Claude features.
The court concluded that the Secretary’s concern about Anthropic disabling Claude from performing lawful actions qualifies as a supply chain risk within the meaning of section 4713.
Judge Karen Henderson, the dissenting vote, argued that the definition should not cover a contractor’s honest enforcement of restrictions on a covered article’s use disfavored by the government. The case highlights the ongoing legal battle between Anthropic and the Trump administration over the blacklisting.
Source: arstechnica
