Federal judge blocks Pentagon's blacklist of artificial intelligence company Anthropic

A US judge has blocked the Pentagon from putting Anthropic on a blacklist, ruling that the government broke the law. The decision came in late March from Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco.

The Pentagon had labelled Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the AI company refused to remove safety limits on its technology. Those limits stop its AI from being used for weapons that act without human control or for spying on citizens.

Anthropic went to court in March, saying the blacklist was punishment for speaking publicly about AI safety. Judge Lin agreed. She found that the government had acted too quickly and gone beyond its authority. She also said that punishing a company for its public views is illegal under the First Amendment.