OpenAI strikes deal with Pentagon to use tech in ‘classified network’ 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his company has reached a deal with the United States Department of Defense after its previous contractor Anthropic voiced ethical concerns about the military’s use of its artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

In a statement shared on X late on Friday, Altman said OpenAI made the deal after the Defense Department demonstrated its “deep respect for safety”.

Altman said the Pentagon agreed with his company’s principles that OpenAI’s technology would not be used for “domestic mass surveillance” or for “autonomous weapon systems”, affirming that humans would take “responsibility for the use of force”.

“We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can,” Altman said, adding that “the world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.”

The announcement came hours after US President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic, whose CEO Dario Amodei had said his company could not “in good conscience accede” to certain demands from the Pentagon.

It has also been reported that Anthropic’s Claude AI software was used by the US military to aid in its abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.

Anthropic said it was refusing to remove safeguards that prevented its technology from being used for US domestic mass surveillance and to programme autonomous weapons, which can attack targets without human intervention.

Human rights advocates have voiced concerns about the unregulated use of AI models by militaries, including the Israeli army in its genocidal war on Gaza.

Israeli forces have reportedly used AI systems, including “Lavender”, “The Gospel”, and “Where’s Daddy?” to process mass surveillance data and generate lists of Palestinian people to kill.

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump called Anthropic “left-wing nut jobs” and said agencies must immediately stop using their technology, but gave the Pentagon six months to phase out its usage where it was already embedded in military platforms.