OpenAI just handed one of its biggest rivals a massive PR victory, in a blunder that even CEO Sam Altman admitted had optics that “don’t look good.”
On Friday, Altman announced that OpenAI had reached a new agreement with the Department of Defense over how its AI systems would be deployed across the military, an act that many saw as the company crossing the picket line. That’s because Anthropic, a company founded by former OpenAI employees, had refused to give in to the Pentagon’s demands that it give the military unrestricted use of its Claude AI, even as CEO Dario Amodei insisted that Anthropic’s AI not be used for autonomous weaponry or the mass surveillance of US citizens.
It was a move that could come at great cost for Anthropic. The Pentagon had vowed to ice the company out of contracts with the federal government by declaring it a “supply chain risk,” and even threatened to seize its tech.
But at least in the short term, it’s OpenAI that’s facing more blowback for its decision. Online, scores of users — ranging from your typical AI bro to, we kid you not, Katy Perry — are saying they’re ditching ChatGPT in favor of Claude because of Altman’s deal with the Pentagon. Indeed, Claude surged to the top of the App Store over the weekend, and as of Monday, still claims the number one spot above ChatGPT, which is currently in second place.
A recent thread in the r/ChatGPT subreddit calling on users to to quit the AI chatbot quickly became one of the forum’s most highly-upvoted posts of all time.
“You’re now training a war machine,” the thread reads. “Let’s see proof of cancellation.”
The fierce backlash is despite Altman claiming that the DoD agreement included the same restrictions that Anthropic had been seeking. But in the eyes of many of its users and critics alike, the fact that OpenAI had reached an agreement at all while Anthropic refused to bend the knee was a sign of its capitulation to a deeply unpopular administration. The ethics of a company that was founded on supposedly beneficent principles now allowing its AI systems to be deployed across the US military couldn’t have faced a more immediate test when just hours after Altman announced the agreement on Friday, the US and Israel launched a series of deadly strikes in Iran that killed its leader Ruhollah Khomeini and hundreds of civilians. (Reports suggest that the DoD used Claude to select targets in Iran, meaning even Anthropic’s principled stand may be yet more theater from the AI industry.)
Altman, meanwhile, has been in damage control. Following the deal’s announcement, he hosted a rare AMA on X where he fielded questions about OpenAI’s work with the “DoW” — referring to the “Department of War,” the Trump administration’s preferred moniker for the…
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