OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced late on Friday that his company has reached an agreement allowing the Department of Defense to use its AI models in the department’s classified network.
This follows a high-profile standoff between the department — also known under the Trump administration as the Department of War — and OpenAI’s rival Anthropic. The Pentagon pushed AI companies, including Anthropic, to allow their models be used “all lawful purposes,” while Anthropic sought to draw a red line around mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
In a lengthy statement released Thursday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company “never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner,” but he argued that “in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”
More than 60 OpenAI employees and 300 Google employees signed an open letter this week asking their employers to support Anthropic’s position.
After Anthropic and the Pentagon failed to reach an agreement, President Donald Trump criticized the “Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic” in a social media post that also directed federal agencies to stop using the company’s products after a six-month phase out period.
In a separate post, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed Anthropic was trying to “seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military.” Hegseth also said he is designating Anthropic as a supply-chain risk: “Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
On Friday, Anthropic said it had “not yet received direct communication from the Department of War or the White House on the status of our negotiations,” but insisted it would “challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.”
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 9, 2026
Surprisingly, Altman claimed in a post on X that OpenAI’s new defense contract includes protections addressing the same issues that became a flashpoint for Anthropic.
“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman said. “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
Altman said OpenAI “will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted,” and it will deploy engineers with the Pentagon “to help with our models and to ensure their safety.”
“We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept,” Altman added. “We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.”
Fortune’s Sharon Goldman reports that Altman told OpenAI employees at an all-hands meeting that the government will allow the company to build its own “safety stack” to prevent misuse, and that “if the model refuses to do a task, then the government would not force OpenAI to make it do that task.”
Altman’s post came shortly before news broke that the U.S. and Israeli governments have begun bombing Iran, with Trump calling for the overthrow of the Iranian government.
Source link
#OpenAIs #Sam #Altman #announces #Pentagon #deal #technical #safeguards #TechCrunch
.jpg)
.jpg?ssl=1 "These New Smart Glasses From Solos Come With a Privacy Shield for the CamerasSmart glasses company Solos has long focused on audio-only smart glasses. On Tuesday, it announced two new pairs of glasses, one of which has a camera—but you can buy a separate accessory to hide the camera for privacy’s sake.Solos’ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo V2. The latter was first announced last year as an effort to directly “outshine Meta.” These 9 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new 9 Meta Smartglasses, including photo and video capture, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with prescription lenses and have a 10- to 12-hour battery life.The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that let wearers control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield blocks the cameras from view and from recording the world, allowing you to keep wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full kit of modular options costs .Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory is perhaps not the most effective way to stave off concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from bothering with privacy at all. Also, there isn’t anything stopping bad actors from removing the clip-on blockers later in an interaction—say, after entering an event that prohibits camera recording.Courtesy of Solos SmartglassesSolos’ first camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, launched in 2024. WIRED put them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best Smart Glasses gallery, citing some decent design choices, albeit ones held back by middling media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that demands too many permissions. All in all, the glasses haven’t quite reached the standard Meta has set with its popular smart glasses.Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other big companies are trying to fill in the cracks. Google and Samsung have a partnership to build out Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple has reportedly been building its own smart glasses as well.Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even Realities and its camera-free glasses. Solos’ reemphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called creepy “pervert glasses” and were criticized after the company silently added face recognition code to its glasses, then quickly removed it after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done itself any favors since then, announcing last week that it will start charging for features on its smart glasses that have previously been free.Meta has acknowledged that a market for audio-only smart glasses exists, as CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a private Q&A session with media that he thinks there is “market demand for that product for sure.” But Meta hasn’t moved away from its camera-forward spectacles yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. Until then, companies like Solos are eager to chip away at that market.#Smart #Glasses #Solos #Privacy #Shield #Camerascameras,design,smart glasses,wearables,artificial intelligence,meta")
Post Comment