Governments using AI company Anthropic’s products have in recent months repeatedly tried to use its models to surveil their citizens and to research diseases in ways that could support bioweapons, the company said Thursday.
In a lengthy threat intelligence report, Anthropic detailed five instances, four of them disclosed as occurring in May, in which it had banned some accounts for suspicious biological research that the company said could be used to support the creation of viruses or toxins that could lead to significant human suffering or death. It’s the first time a major AI company has gone into detail about multiple, significant recent cases where government scientists appeared to have been using platforms for research that could potentially support bioweapons creation, Anthropic said.
In each of the five cases Anthropic cited, the company suspected that the researchers behind them were affiliated in some way with a government or military in a country it had banned, took deliberate steps to hide their location and identity, or both. The company declined to say where any of the researchers were based, but its terms of service allow all use from all but a few regions, including China, Iran and Russia.
