BEIJING: China cautioned the United States on Wednesday against the aggressive integration of artificial intelligence into its military operations, warning that such actions could lead the world toward a dystopian future reminiscent of the “Terminator” films.
This warning comes as President Trump and his administration continue to make plans allowing for unlimited access by the US military and intelligence community to AI technologies that have been developed by private industry for defence and military purposes.
Elon Musk’s Grok system was approved recently by the Pentagon for classified use; moreover, Anthropic (an artificial intelligence firm) was placed on the US government blacklist because Anthropic would not grant permission for its Claude model to be used for mass surveillance or for the application to autonomous lethal weapon systems.
“Such choices as the unrestricted application of AI by the military, using AI as a tool to violate the sovereignty of other nations, allowing AI to excessively affect war decisions, and giving algorithms the power to determine life and death, not only erode ethical restraints and accountability in wars, but also risk technological runaway,” a spokesman for China’s defence ministry, Jiang Bin, said on Wednesday.
“A dystopia depicted in the American film ‘The Terminator’ could one day come true,” he said.
“The Terminator”, released in 1984 and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, depicts an apocalyptic future in which AI-controlled robots fight humans.
The dispute between the Pentagon and AI company Anthropic erupted just days before the US military launched strikes on Iran. Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, had become the most widely deployed frontier AI system within the US military and was the only model operating on the Defence Department’s classified networks.
Tensions escalated after Anthropic insisted its technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems, a position that angered Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Shortly afterward, President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to halt the use of Anthropic’s technology.
Within hours, Hegseth formally designated the company a “supply-chain risk to national security,” effectively blacklisting it from military-related business.
The order barred any military contractor, supplier, or partner from conducting commercial activities with Anthropic, while granting the Pentagon a six-month transition period to replace the technology.
