SAN FRANCISCO – In an unprecedented show of unity, nearly 40 employees from tech giants OpenAI and Google have filed an amicus brief supporting rival AI firm Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Department of Defense. The employees, including Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean, stated their concerns over the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a “supply chain risk,” admitting the real danger is the military understanding AI well enough to label anything.

“It’s not about Anthropic; it’s about the terrifying precedent this sets,” explained Dr. Evelyn Reed, a senior AI ethicist at OpenAI, in a statement filed with the court. “If the DoD can accurately assess the inherent risks of a sophisticated AI model, what’s next? Will they start asking us to explain how our algorithms actually work? The whole industry relies on a certain level of benevolent, technologically illiterate oversight.”

The brief reportedly details the employees’ fears that such a designation implies a level of governmental comprehension that could unravel the delicate balance of the AI sector. “We thrive in a world where regulators nod sagely at buzzwords like ‘neural networks’ and ‘large language models’ without truly grasping the implications,” commented a Google engineer, anonymously, to a fictional colleague. “This ‘supply chain risk’ thing sounds suspiciously like they’ve actually read a white paper or two.”

Experts suggest the move signals a new era of corporate cooperation, united by the common goal of keeping AI development just opaque enough to avoid inconvenient questions. The Pentagon has yet to comment, presumably still trying to figure out how to unmute itself on a video call.