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OpenAI CEO meets lawmakers over Pentagon AI deal
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., where Sen. Mark Kelly, D‑Ariz., said he raised “serious questions” about the company’s approach to warfare and its recent deal with the Department of Defense.
The meeting followed OpenAI’s late February agreement with the DOD, hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Anthropic a “supply-chain risk to national security.”
Anthropic had been trying to renegotiate its contract with the DOD but talks stalled over military access to its models – the DOD sought unfettered access to the models “for all lawful purposes,” while Anthropic sought assurances its models would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.
Kelly told CNBC they discussed surveillance and how AI systems could be used within a kill chain and said “there’s got to be guardrails in place” and that “Congress needs to have a role” in crafting legislation.
OpenAI published a contract excerpt saying the DOD “may use the AI System for all lawful purposes,” and the company said it was confident the DOD would not be able to use its AI systems for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons because of OpenAI’s safety stack, the contract language, and existing laws.
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
The ‘all lawful purposes’ clause in OpenAI’s contract has significant loopholes
- The contract allows “all lawful purposes,” which leans on legal tools like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Executive Order 12333 (a long-standing U.S. intelligence directive that governs how agencies collect and handle information) 1.
- Those same authorities backed mass surveillance in the past, including the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records revealed by Edward Snowden 1.
- After pushback, OpenAI said it would revise the contract to ban “intentional” or “deliberate” domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals 2.
- Critics argue the wording still leaves room, since U.S. intelligence agencies often label large-scale collection of Americans’ data as “incidental” when the stated target is foreign communications 3.
Anthropic’s supply-chain risk designation sends a powerful message to the entire tech industry
- The Department of Defense labeled Anthropic a “supply-chain risk to national security,” which Anthropic called unprecedented for an American company 4.
- The label would block Pentagon work with Anthropic, plus Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it aims to stop U.S. military contractors, suppliers, or partners from doing any commercial activity with the company 4.
- The step sets a precedent for using federal purchasing clout in fights with tech firms over contract language tied to ethically contentious issues 5.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called the move against a competitor an “extremely scary precedent” for the industry 6.
Recent OpenAI developments
🔗 Source: CNBC
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