Killer Robots and AI on the Battlefield: the Pentagon vs Anthropic
08 March 2026

Killer Robots and AI on the Battlefield: the Pentagon vs Anthropic

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Who should hold the power to decide how AI is used on our battlefields? That’s the question being debated after a face-off between the Pentagon and one of the world’s biggest AI companies.

Anthropic ultimately lost its contract with the US military after refusing to let its Claude program be used for mass surveillance of American citizens, or for fully automated weapons capable of killing with no human oversight.

But now that its rival, OpenAI, has stepped into the ring and cut its own deal with the government, what does that mean for how AI is used in our current wars – and the wars of the future?

Today, David Wroe from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on tech titans, robodogs and whether AI should be used to kill.

 

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Guest: David Wroe, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Photo: Xinhua/Sipa USA

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