The U.S. Department of Defense leveraged a partnership existing between Anthropic (ANTHRO) and the enterprise software firm Palantir Technologies (PLTR) in its capture of the former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic’s (ANTHRO) AI tool Claude was used in the mission, which included a bombing campaign in the Venezuelan capital Caracas earlier this year. Palantir’s (PLTR) tools are often used by the Defense Department and federal law enforcement, the people said.
Anthropic (ANTHRO), which is backed by Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google, was the first AI model developer to be used in classified operations conducted by the Department, according to WSJ.
However, Anthropic’s (ANTHRO) usage guidelines specifically disallow the use of Claude for operations that include violence, weapons development, or surveillance.
“We cannot comment on whether Claude, or any other AI model, was used for any specific operation, classified or otherwise,” an Anthropic spokesman told the Journal.
“Any use of Claude—whether in the private sector or across government—is required to comply with our Usage Policies, which govern how Claude can be deployed. We work closely with our partners to ensure compliance.”
The Pentagon declined to comment. The report comes weeks after the U.S. security personnel conducted a dramatic pre-dawn operation and captured Maduro and his wife before bringing them to New York in January to face charges related to narco-terrorism and others.