Slotkin introduces bill to restrict Pentagon's use of military AI
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday to regulate how the Defense Department deploys artificial intelligence, marking an early congressional attempt to set boundaries around military AI use.
The bill would codify three existing Pentagon guidelines into law: AI cannot autonomously decide to kill a target, the technology cannot enable mass surveillance of Americans, and it cannot be used to launch or detonate nuclear weapons.
"We're unhealthy as a political system, and so we focus more on things like Greenland than we do on the use of AI in matters of lethal force. And it's our responsibility to legislate this," Slotkin said.
A response to Pentagon-Anthropic conflict
The bill's first two restrictions sit at the center of a recent clash between the Pentagon and AI company Anthropic. The Defense Department has said it already treats mass surveillance of Americans as illegal and requires humans to make lethal decisions. Anthropic worried that policy gaps could allow surveillance anyway and that future administrations might revoke the guidelines.
That dispute escalated when President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic models within six months. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the company a supply chain risk, despite Anthropic's technology having helped the U.S. identify military targets in its ongoing war with Iran. Anthropic is suing over the designation.
Slotkin said her bill could have prevented the split. "The Pentagon was able to target Anthropic in this case and is going to spend the next year and God knows how many millions of dollars ripping out Anthropic from all the classified systems, something that's going to cost the taxpayer an enormous amount of money over a dispute that could have been handled if we just had law," she said.
Narrow scope, early timing
The bill currently has no cosponsors. Slotkin introduced it to shape early conversations around the National Defense Authorization Act, the major annual defense spending bill that Congress legislates near year-end.
"Our bill is a neat five pages. This is not an extensive, elaborate thing," Slotkin said. "And that is on purpose, because we understand that, like with every tool ever invented, there are some really good uses that help and there are some really dangerous uses."
For government professionals working on AI for Government, understanding the regulatory framework emerging around military AI deployment is increasingly relevant. Those involved in policy development may find value in the AI Learning Path for Policy Makers, which covers governance and decision-making in AI contexts.
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