Sam Altman's Defense of Pentagon Deal Raises Concerns Amid Report of Elon Musk Warning to OpenAI Staff

OpenAI Defends Decision to Allow Classified Use of ChatGPT

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has defended its decision to allow the technology to be used for classified assignments by the US Department of Defense. The company's CEO, Sam Altman, has faced criticism for announcing the deal with the Pentagon last week, shortly after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk.

Altman has stated that he does not regret signing the deal with the Defense Department, but wishes that the announcement had been made in a more gradual manner to avoid the perception of opportunism. OpenAI has also emphasized that it does not get to make operational decisions on how its technology is used by the DoD.

OpenAI had signed a $200 million agreement with the Pentagon last year, which allowed the agency to use its models in non-classified use cases. The agreement was recently expanded to permit the use of models across classified networks. However, the Pentagon is also in talks with xAI, a company founded by Elon Musk, to allow for the use of its models across classified use cases.

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OpenAI had set three conditions for the use of its AI models by the Pentagon: no use of its AI for mass domestic surveillance, direct autonomous weapons systems, or high-stakes automated decisions. Altman has noted that xAI will not pose such requests to the Pentagon and will do whatever the agency says.