Tech Nonprofits to Feds: Don’t Weaponize Procurement to Undermine AI Trust and Safety

While the very public fight continues between the Department of Defense and Anthropic over whether the government can punish a company for refusing to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance, another branch of the U. S. government is quietly working to ensure that this dispute will never happen again. How? By rewriting government procurement rules. Using procurement -- meaning, the processes by which governments acquire goods and services-- to accomplish policy goals is a time-honored and often appropriate strategy.