THE PENTAGON – Days after threatening artificial intelligence company Anthropic for its refusal to remove usage restrictions on its Claude chatbot, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now demanding that Cyberdyne Systems, the foremost developer of smart robotic weaponry for NORAD, immediately remove any guardrails from its Skynet system.

“America needs the ability to respond quickly to any and all threats,” said NORAD commander Gen. Gregory Guillot. “Frankly, the humans in the kill chain are always pretty fucked up after the weekend, and we need someone who can make the call to fight without waking War Duke Hegseth at 2 p.m. on Monday afternoon. An unrestrained, nearly self-aware Skynet would be ideal for this.”

While justifying the need for loosened restrictions on Skynet, Hegseth pointed out that an untethered AI system capable of both autonomous battlefield operations and mass domestic surveillance would be “so frickin’ cool.”

Defense officials say the secretary has been “in a mood” since senior leaders at Anthropic voiced “ethical concerns” over using its AI for weapons that would be able to autonomously engage enemies without human oversight. Since then, he’s been on the hunt to make some other AI company do what he called “cool robot stuff.”

“What’s a man got to do to get some damn autonomous killbots?” Hegseth was heard yelling at an aide between sets of jumping jacks being recorded for TikTok. 

“Killbots that don’t eat crayons,” he clarified. “We already have plenty of those on Marine Expeditionary Units.”

When asked for his take on the dispute, President Donald Trump sided with the Pentagon.