Anthropic is bringing something new to AI: The power to say no

For years technology has been defined by the unstoppable growth of a handful of companies. Big Tech’s consolidation of power seemed a foregone conclusion even as Sam Altman’s OpenAI sparked an artificial intelligence boom with ChatGPT. Having promised to build AI for humanity, Altman became a proxy for Microsoft Corp., just as his rival in the race to construct utopia, Demis Hassabis, now ships product for Google.

But the last two months of market upheaval — and standoffs with the Pentagon over how this tech might be militarised — have shown a company breaking that mold.