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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced late on Friday that his company has reached an agreement allowing the Department of Defense to use its AI models in the department\u2019s classified network.<\/p>\n
This follows a high-profile standoff between the department \u2014 also known under the Trump administration as the Department of War \u2014 and OpenAI\u2019s rival Anthropic. The Pentagon pushed AI companies, including Anthropic, to allow their models be used \u201call lawful purposes,\u201d<\/a> while Anthropic sought to draw a red line around mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.<\/p>\n In a lengthy statement released Thursday<\/a>, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company \u201cnever raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc<\/em> manner,\u201d but he argued that \u201cin a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.\u201d<\/p>\n More than 60 OpenAI employees and 300 Google employees signed an open letter this week<\/a> asking their employers to support Anthropic\u2019s position.<\/p>\n After Anthropic and the Pentagon failed to reach an agreement, President Donald Trump criticized the \u201cLeftwing nut jobs at Anthropic\u201d in a social media post<\/a> that also directed federal agencies to stop using the company\u2019s products after a six-month phase out period.<\/p>\n In a separate post<\/a>, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed Anthropic was trying to \u201cseize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military.\u201d Hegseth also said he is designating Anthropic as a supply-chain risk: \u201cEffective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, Anthropic said<\/a> it had \u201cnot yet received direct communication from the Department of War or the White House on the status of our negotiations,\u201d but insisted it would \u201cchallenge any supply chain risk designation in court.\u201d<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> Surprisingly, Altman claimed in a post on X<\/a> that OpenAI\u2019s new defense contract includes protections addressing the same issues that became a flashpoint for Anthropic.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,\u201d Altman said. \u201cThe DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Altman said OpenAI \u201cwill build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted,\u201d and it will deploy engineers with the Pentagon \u201cto help with our models and to ensure their safety.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept,\u201d Altman added. \u201cWe have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortune\u2019s Sharon Goldman reports<\/a> that Altman told OpenAI employees at an all-hands meeting that the government will allow the company to build its own \u201csafety stack\u201d to prevent misuse, and that \u201cif the model refuses to do a task, then the government would not force OpenAI to make it do that task.\u201d<\/p>\n Altman\u2019s post came shortly before news broke that the U.S. and Israeli governments have begun bombing Iran<\/a>, with Trump calling for the overthrow of the Iranian government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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