The Pentagon’s bombshell deal with OpenAI, explained

Only Congress can put meaningful limits on government abuse of AI.

This post originally appeared in Understanding AI.

“OpenAI’s critics worry that vague language in the OpenAI contract provides the government with plenty of loopholes to engage in mass surveillance.”

On any other day, the record-breaking $110 billion fundraising round OpenAI announced last Friday would have captured the attention of the AI world. Instead, we were all captivated by the showdown between Anthropic and the Pentagon.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon. He demanded that Anthropic drop contractual terms prohibiting the use of Claude for mass surveillance of Americans and the operation of fully autonomous weapons. If Anthropic didn’t comply, Hegseth threatened to declare Anthropic a supply-chain risk — a designation that could prevent other government contractors from using Anthropic’s products.

Hegseth gave Amodei a deadline of 5:01 PM on Friday. But Donald Trump jumped the gun. At 3:47 PM, he declared on Truth Social that Anthropic was “A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY” and directed “EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology.” Hegseth followed through on his threat and declared Anthropic to be a supply-chain risk.

According to Hegseth, this meant that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic” — though it’s not clear that the law gives Hegseth such broad powers.