{"id":810338,"date":"2024-12-06T10:09:57","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T16:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/06\/openais-new-defense-contract-completes-its-military-pivot\/"},"modified":"2024-12-06T10:09:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T16:09:57","slug":"openais-new-defense-contract-completes-its-military-pivot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/06\/openais-new-defense-contract-completes-its-military-pivot\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI\u2019s new defense contract completes its military pivot"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At the start of 2024, OpenAI\u2019s rules for how armed forces might use its technology were unambiguous.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company prohibited anyone from using its models for \u201cweapons development\u201d or \u201cmilitary and warfare.\u201d That changed on January 10, when The Intercept<\/em> reported<\/a> that OpenAI had softened those restrictions, forbidding anyone from using the technology to \u201charm yourself or others\u201d by developing or using weapons, injuring others, or destroying property. OpenAI said soon after that it would work with the Pentagon on cybersecurity<\/a> software, but not on weapons. Then, in a blog post published in October, the company shared that it is working in the national security space, arguing that in the right hands, AI could \u201chelp protect people, deter adversaries, and even prevent future conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Today, OpenAI is announcing that its technology will be deployed directly on the battlefield.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company says it will partner with the defense-tech company Anduril, a maker of AI-powered drones, radar systems, and missiles, to help US and allied forces defend against drone attacks. OpenAI will help build AI models that \u201crapidly synthesize time-sensitive data, reduce the burden on human operators, and improve situational awareness\u201d to take down enemy drones, according to the announcement. Specifics have not been released, but the program will be narrowly focused on defending US personnel and facilities from unmanned aerial threats, according to Liz Bourgeois, an OpenAI spokesperson. \u201cThis partnership is consistent with our policies and does not involve leveraging our technology to develop systems designed to harm others,\u201d she said. An Anduril spokesperson did not provide specifics on the bases around the world where the models will be deployed but said the technology will help spot and track drones and reduce the time service members spend on dull tasks.<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s policies banning military use of its technology unraveled in less than a year. When the company softened its once-clear rule earlier this year, it was to allow for working with the military in limited contexts, like cybersecurity, suicide prevention, and disaster relief, according to an OpenAI spokesperson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, OpenAI is openly embracing its work on national security. If working with militaries or defense-tech companies can help ensure that democratic countries dominate the AI race, the company has written, then doing so will not contradict OpenAI\u2019s mission of ensuring that AI\u2019s benefits are widely shared. In fact, it argues, it will help serve<\/a> that mission. But make no mistake: This is a big shift from its position just a year ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In understanding how rapidly this pivot unfolded, it\u2019s worth noting that while the company wavered in its approach to the national security space, others in tech were racing toward it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Venture capital firms more than doubled their investment in defense tech in 2021, to $40 billion, after firms like Anduril and Palantir proved that with some persuasion (and litigation<\/a>), the Pentagon would pay handsomely for new technologies. Employee opposition to working in warfare (most palpable during walkouts<\/a> at Google in 2018) softened for some when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 (several executives in defense tech told me that the \u201cunambiguity\u201d of that war has helped them attract both investment and talent).\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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So in some ways, by embracing defense OpenAI is just catching up. The difference is that defense-tech companies own that they\u2019re in the business of warfare and haven\u2019t had to rapidly disown a legacy as a nonprofit AI research company. From its founding charter<\/a>, OpenAI has positioned itself as an organization on a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. It had publicly vowed that working with the military would contradict that mission.<\/p>\n

Its October 24 blog post<\/a> charted a new path, attempting to square OpenAI\u2019s willingness to work in defense with its stated values. Titled \u201cOpenAI\u2019s approach to AI and national security,\u201d it was released the same day the White House issued<\/a> its National Security Memorandum on AI, which ordered the Pentagon and other agencies to ramp up their use of AI, in part to thwart competition from China.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cWe believe a democratic vision for AI is essential to unlocking its full potential and ensuring its benefits are broadly shared,\u201d OpenAI wrote, echoing similar language in the White House memo. \u201cWe believe democracies should continue to take the lead in AI development, guided by values like freedom, fairness, and respect for human rights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It offered a number of ways OpenAI could help pursue that goal, including efforts to \u201cstreamline translation and summarization tasks, and study and mitigate civilian harm,\u201d while still prohibiting its technology from being used to \u201charm people, destroy property, or develop weapons.\u201d Above all, it was a message from OpenAI that it is on board with national security work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new policies emphasize \u201cflexibility and compliance with the law,\u201d says Heidy Khlaaf, a chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute and a safety researcher who authored a paper<\/a> with OpenAI in 2022 about the possible hazards of its technology in contexts including the military. The company\u2019s pivot \u201cultimately signals an acceptability in carrying out activities related to military and warfare as the Pentagon and US military see fit,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Amazon, Google, and OpenAI\u2019s partner and investor Microsoft have competed for the Pentagon\u2019s cloud computing contracts for years. Those companies have learned that working with defense can be incredibly lucrative, and OpenAI\u2019s pivot, which comes as the company expects $5 billion in losses<\/a> and is reportedly exploring new revenue streams like advertising<\/a>, could signal that it wants a piece of those contracts. Big Tech\u2019s relationships with the military also no longer elicit the outrage and scrutiny that they once did. But OpenAI is not a cloud provider, and the technology it\u2019s building stands to do much more than simply store and retrieve data. With this new partnership, OpenAI promises to help sort through data on the battlefield, provide insights about threats, and help make the decision-making process in war faster and more efficient.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s statements on national security perhaps raise more questions than they answer. The company wants to mitigate civilian harm, but for which civilians? Does contributing AI models to a program that takes down drones not count as developing weapons that could harm people?<\/p>\n

\u201cDefensive weapons are still indeed weapons,\u201d Khlaaf says. They \u201ccan often be positioned offensively subject to the locale and aim of a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond those questions, working in defense means that the world\u2019s foremost AI company, which has had an incredible amount of leverage in the industry and has long pontificated about how to steward AI responsibly, will now work in a defense-tech industry that plays by an entirely different set of rules. In that system, when your customer is the US military, tech companies do not get to decide how their products are used.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n James O’Donnell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the start of 2024, OpenAI\u2019s rules for how armed forces might use its technology were unambiguous.\u00a0 The company prohibited anyone from using its models for \u201cweapons development\u201d or \u201cmilitary and warfare.\u201d That changed on January 10, when The Intercept reported that OpenAI had softened those restrictions, forbidding anyone from using the technology to \u201charm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":810339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2309,77235,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-810338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-defense","8":"category-openais","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}