Recently, the artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic, which is behind the GenAI model Claude, decided to restrict the use of its own AI for military purposes and war by the Pentagon because of ethical concerns. From a moral perspective, it is positive that a company tries to live up to its corporate responsibility.

Anthropic has enjoyed a lot of praise for this move internationally. The number of users of its AI products has grown significantly since then, new talent continues to apply to join the company, and Anthropic has been able to differentiate itself from OpenAI and other competitors as the “good AI company” in its current funding round.

A similar approach was taken by OpenAI some years ago when it applied the same narrative – OpenAI being the “good guys” and all the other big tech companies the “bad guys” – when seeking new investors.

From an ethical standpoint, the question arises whether a decision that AI be used in lethal automated weapon systems ought to be in the hands of an individual company at all? Should such a fundamental decision involving humanity and planet Earth really be made by a firm committed primarily to its own interests and the maximisation of its profits? Should humankind and the ecosystem have to rely on the call of a private firm?

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