Feb. 28 (UPI) — OpenAI announced it secured a deal to provide artificial intelligence services to the Defense Department hours after the Trump administration directed all federal agencies to stop using those provided by Anthropic.
OpenAI is the San Francisco-based tech research company founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk and others behind applications including ChatGPT and DALL-E.
“Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified work,” OpenAI CEO Altman said late Friday in a post on X.
The Pentagon had previously used Anthropic’s AI model Claude in much of its classified work, including its operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Contract negotiations between the tech company and the Defense Department soured after the Trump administration demanded it be allowed to use the AI system for “all lawful purposes.” Anthropic, though, wanted certain guardrails in place to prevent the government from using its AI system for surveilling Americans or to create autonomous weapons.
Friday evening, President Donald Trump directed all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic, accusing it of being a “radical left, woke company” attempting “to dictate how our great military fights and wins wars!”
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
In his post on X, Altman said OpenAI’s agreement with the Defense Department includes similar protections against domestic surveillance and weapons sought by Anthropic.
“Two 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,” he said. “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
The New York Times reported that unlike Anthropic, OpenAI included in its contract with the Pentagon phrasing that allows the government to use its AI product for all lawful purposes.
Fortune reported that Altman told OpenAI employees that the government is allowing the company to build its own “safety stack” and that if the AI model refuses to allow the government to do a certain task, the government won’t force it to.