White House to accelerate development of AI for 'war fighting'

Pete Hegseth will update a directive on the autonomy of weapons systems "to ensure the deliberate adoption of AI systems that respect the chain of command". (Reuters: Evan Vucci)

The White House said it would accelerate the development and use of AI for national security applications, including "intelligence and war fighting domains".

Major AI lab Anthropic is warning of an increased risk of "humans losing control over AI systems".

The Trump administration has stressed the technology should not be used to carry out unlawful surveillance.

The White House says it will accelerate the development and use of artificial intelligence for national security applications.

The news came as a major AI company warned of an increased risk of "humans losing control over AI systems".

The Trump administration announced the plans while stressing the technology should not be used to carry out unlawful surveillance.

Earlier, it asked leading AI developers to voluntarily submit their most capable models for government cybersecurity tests before releasing them to the public.

"Under my Administration, the United States can and will responsibly accelerate the use of AI across intelligence and war fighting domains in line with American values," US President Donald Trump said in a national security memorandum.

A philosopher and Royal Australian Air Force reservist has been chosen to lead the federal government's efforts to keep Australians safe from AI.

Mr Trump said US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had 90 days to update an existing directive on the autonomy of weapons systems "to ensure the deliberate adoption of AI systems that respect the chain of command".

The US president added AI technologies should not be developed or used by the national security enterprise "to censor free speech … or conduct unauthorised or unlawful surveillance activities".

The Trump administration's plans for AI comes as Anthropic warns companies are increasingly delegating AI development to other AI systems.

In a blog post, the US company said if it was taken far enough, the trend could lead to "an AI system capable of fully autonomously designing and developing its own successor".

As of May 2026, more than 80 per cent of the code merged into Anthropic's coding system was authored by its own chatbot, Claude, it said.

It also said that by 2027 Claude would be capable of tasks that took a person weeks, according to research.

"These trends have huge implications. AI that can build itself would be a major development in the history of technology — one that could bring enormous good for th