If A.I. Is a Weapon, Who Should Control It?; The New York Times, February 28, 2026

Ross Douthat, The New York Times ; If A.I. Is a Weapon, Who Should Control It?

"We spent the Cold War worrying mostly about military folly, and A.I. entered into our anxieties even then: the Soviet Doomsday Machine in “Dr. Strangelove,” the game-playing computer in “WarGames” and of course the fateful “Terminator” decision to make Skynet operational.

But for the last few years, as A.I. advances have concentrated potentially extraordinary power in the hands of a few companies and C.E.O.s — themselves embedded in a Bay Area culture of science-fiction dreams and apocalyptic fears — it’s become more natural to worry more about private power and ambition, about would-be A.I. god-kings rather than presidents and generals.

Until, that is, the current collision between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, the artificial intelligence pioneer, over whether Anthropic’s A.I. models should be bound by the company’s ethical constraints or made available for all uses the Pentagon might have in mind."