OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other senior executives took to social media over the weekend to defend their decision, announced on Friday, to strike a deal with the Department of War to allow the company’s models to be used in classified military networks. The deal came hours after archrival Anthropic turned down a similar agreement with the Pentagon and the Trump administration said it was labeling Anthropic a “supply-chain risk.”
OpenAI faced vocal backlash for agreeing to the Pentagon deal after Altman had earlier in the week voiced support for Anthropic’s position that it would not accept a Pentagon contract that did not contain explicit prohibitions on its AI technology being used for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens or being incorporated into autonomous weapons that can make a decision to strike targets without human oversight.
