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The government implied that OpenAI, GDM, and xAI will allow their models to be used for mass surveillance of Americans. Are they right?
The Department of War is trying to pressure Anthropic to allow their models to be used "to spy on Americans en masse, or to develop weapons that fire with no human involvement". Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is reportedly "close" to having the military refuse to do business with any company that doesn't cut ties with Anthropic. A senior Pentagon official says he wants to "make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this." (Source: Axios)
Right now Claude is the only model that the military entrusts for use in classified systems, but soon they'll presumably switch to another company if Anthropic doesn't back down.
The article states
A senior administration official said the Pentagon is confident the other three [OpenAI, Google, and xAI] will agree to the "all lawful use" standard. But a source familiar with those discussions said much is still undecided."
So it sounds like the government is, as a pressure tactic, implying OpenAI, Google, and xAI will roll over and let their models be used to surveil Americans and autonomously kill people.
Is this true? I assume OpenAI, Google, and xAI employees wouldn't stand for this. Can OpenAI, Google, and xAI comment on if they will allow their models to be used to surveil Americans en masse or to autonomously kill people without safeguards (esp. measures to ensure they're not used against Americans)?
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1Right now Claude is the only model that the military entrusts for use in classified systems
On what basis do you say this? I think it's the only one that's confirmed to have been used in a classified setting. But DOD has ~$200m contracts with xAI, OpenAI, and GDM as well.
Also lol, "OpenAI and xAI employees wouldn't stand for this". You think the people who staked the company on Altman and the people who stuck around after MechaHitler will draw the line at "building autonomous weapons for the government that could either severely hamper our funding or catapult us to the lead"?
My claim that Anthropic is the only model the military entrusts for using classified systems is based on the fact that the article I linked says "Anthropic's Claude is the only AI model currently available in the military's classified systems" (and this claim has been corroborated by other reporting on the topic that seems to have done original digging). This article goes into more detail.
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