Microsoft Backs Anthropic To Halt US DOD's 'Supply-Chain Risk' Designation

joshuark shares a report from Reuters: Microsoft has filed an amicus brief on Tuesday in support of Anthropic's lawsuit asking the court to temporarily block the U.S. Department of Defense designation of the AI startup as a supply-chain risk. In an amicus brief filing in a federal court in San Francisco, Microsoft backed Anthropic's request for a temporary restraining order against the Pentagon order, arguing that its determination should be paused while the court considers the case. Microsoft, which integrates the AI lab's products and services into technology it provides to the U.S. military, said that it was directly impacted by the DOD designation.

"Should this action proceed without the entry of a temporary restraining order, Microsoft and other government contractors with expertise in developing solutions to support U.S. government missions will be forced to account for a new risk in their business planning," the company said. Microsoft's filing argued the TRO is needed to prevent costly disruptions for suppliers, who would otherwise have to rapidly rebuild offerings that rely on Anthropic's products. The judge overseeing the case must approve Microsoft's request to file the brief before it is officially entered, but courts often permit outside parties to weigh in on important cases.

A tacky gift

[Anonymous Coward]

Is being manufactured as we speak. Here is an artists rendering of the final product. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Tablizer]

More like this [hope.edu]

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[Mr. Dollar Ton]

More like the donors wrestling for control after the "bought and paid for" politician tried to extort them a tad too much. In putin's federation these eventually fizzled out as the government put businesses against each other and subdued them all, all power coalescing under the kremlin throne.

We'll see how it goes in trump territory, the chieftain is a lot older if not less shrewd and cruel than volodya vassilich.

Well, that tears it

[Anonymous Coward]

I was backing Anthropic, but with Microsoft backing them they are clearly evil so not worth backing.

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[gtall]

Yes, and let us wait several weeks or months to see if this decision by MS doesn't buckle when la Presidenta and His Goons (it's a new Rap Music group) come calling.

Re: Well, that tears it

[LindleyF]

It's not just Microsoft. It's everyone. All the defense contractors would have to avoid using Claud or any software Claud might have been involved in creating. That's just not practical. Expect more of this.

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[sg_oneill]

Not just defence contractors. *any* government contractor would have to not use claude.

For instance AWS couldnt offer Claude as part of its AI Inference service, to *anyone* (Which would fuck us up at work, as we use claude)

I cant imagine this designation surviving judicial scrutiny. These designations where designed to ban companies with ties to hostile state actors, such as Huwei or Russian state backed companies. But this designation was publically held over their head as a blackmail threat "Modify your

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[unixisc]

Government doesn't use AWS: remember, in Trump 45, due to his differences w/ Bezos over the Washington Post, the Feds ended up picking Azure

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[organgtool]

I cant imagine this designation surviving judicial scrutiny

It's not intended to pass judicial scrutiny. As with every case of Trump not getting what he wants, it's designed to inflict maximum pain, regardless of the outcome, and ultimately make it easier to just capitulate to all of his demands. It's a classic extortion tactic: "all of this would go away if you just give us everything we want".

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[burtosis]

But if they don’t use Claude, how are they going to have an excuse when the firing solutions come up as schools and hospitals? Blaming a machine is great, you can design it to easily withstand being thrown under a bus.

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[HiThere]

They'll use OpenAI's product.

Re: Well, that tears it

[LindleyF]

My point has nothing to do with the use of AI militarily. No software of any kind, from any government contractor, can include any line of code that Anthropic's software might have been involved in creating. That's what a supply chain IS.

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[unixisc]

Thank you: I was wondering who might /. back - Trump or Microsoft?

stand together

[ZipNada]

Do whatever unrestrained evil Hegseth demands or he will try to destroy your business. All of the tech companies need to stand with Anthropic on this or they run the risk of completely losing their autonomy.

Re:stand together

[pauljlucas]

What if Microsoft refused to stop using Anthropic's products? What's Hegseth going to do? Declare Microsoft a supply chain risk? Stop the US government from using Microsoft products?

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[unixisc]

Given that Azure is currently the DOD's choice of cloud platforms, Microsoft stands to lose a great deal if they get tossed into the supply-chain shitlist. Especially since Azure is now the main moneymaker for Microsoft, not Windows or Office

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[pauljlucas]

Still, how could the US Government stop using Windows? They'd have to switch many tens of thousands of computers to Linux? The supply-chain list cuts both ways.

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[aaarrrgggh]

For Microsoft it isn't just about Anthropic. This places significant contract risk for *any* contractor that does work in both the private and public sectors, but especially in software and business services. Your costs could double arbitrarily based on political actions by a third party; this is not how a contract works.

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[ArchieBunker]

They're dumb enough to do it and then violate the licenses. Microsoft couldn't do anything about it.

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[gtall]

You want him to look like Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling? Maybe there isn't much to regenerate.

Chasing massive government contracts /s

[Mirnotoriety]

AI: still an immature technology and shouldn't be put anywhere near real business processes. Certainly not your military infrastructure. The real motive for the lawsuit is about chasing massive government contracts /s

'Get out of jail', now good for US people

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

I understand Microsoft seeing the big picture, them losing THEIR government contracts but it's also their leverage. If they truly stood with Anthropic, they would put it in their products: What's the US government going to do, use open-source? The 'too big to fail', 'too big to jail' memes allows them to hold the government hostage, without bribing politicians first.

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[SlashbotAgent]

Which products, exactly? I can see no evidence of its existence in Copilot(website, desktop, M365).

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[unixisc]

I understand Microsoft seeing the big picture, them losing THEIR government contracts but it's also their leverage. If they truly stood with Anthropic, they would put it in their products: What's the US government going to do, use open-source? The 'too big to fail', 'too big to jail' memes allows them to hold the government hostage, without bribing politicians first.

US government does use - and contribute to - Open Source when it suits them. What do you think SELinux is? Only thing - after Theo De Raadt's opposition to the Iraq war in the 00s, the US government blacklisted not only OpenBSD, but the other BSDs as well - NetBSD, FreeBSD,.... I just wish they'd be more discerning, and lift the ban on BSD, since Trump doesn't agree w/ Bush on this. If Theo opposes this current war as well, then just leave OpenBSD banned, but not the others.

The Monkey's Paw President

[Koreantoast]

What's the US government going to do, use open-source?

This re-affirms my view of the Trump administration as a "monkey's paw" [wikipedia.org]: it's addressing legitimate problems in the most hamfisted, corrupt means possible. In this case, the administration is aggressively driving toward open source / open systems architectures across the board to avoid vendor lock. However, they want to accelerate the ability to do so to easily bully and shakedown anyone who doesn't kiss the ring and deliver gifts to their cronies.