Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei is not happy with OpenAI chief Sam Altman. Probably as expected. In a memo to staff reported by The Information, Amodei referred to the Pentagon’s deal with OpenAI as “safety theater.”
“The main reason (OpenAI) accepted the DoD’s deal and we didn’t is because they were interested in appeasing their employees and they were actually interested in preventing abuse,” Amodei said.
Last week, Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) failed to reach an agreement on the military’s request for unrestricted access to the AI company’s technology. Anthropic, which already has $200 million in contracts with the military, claimed the DoD had assured it that the company’s AI would not be used to enable domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons.
Instead, the Department of Defense (DoD), known as the Department of War during the Trump administration, signed a contract with OpenAI. Altman said his company’s new defense agreement will include protections against the same restrictions Anthropic claimed.
In a letter to employees, Amodei called OpenAI’s message “outright lies” and said Altman was “presenting himself as a peacemaker and dealmaker.”
Amodei may not be speaking only from a position of grief here. Anthropic specifically took issue with the DoD’s claim that the company’s AI could be used for “any lawful use.” OpenAI said in a blog post that the contract allows it to use its AI systems “for any lawful purpose.”
“It was clear from our interactions that DoW considers large-scale domestic surveillance illegal and has no plans to use it for this purpose,” OpenAI’s blog post said. “We explicitly state in the contract that lawful use does not apply.”
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Critics have pointed out that laws can change and what is currently considered illegal may be permitted in the future.
And the public seems to be siding with Anthropic. After OpenAI signed a contract with the DoD, ChatGPT removals increased by 295%.
“I think this attempt at spin/gaslighting doesn’t really work with the general public or the media. Most people see OpenAI’s dealings with DoW as sketchy or questionable and see us as heroes (we’re currently #2 on the App Store!),” Amodei wrote to staff. “This is something I’m working on for some unimportant Twitter idiots, but what I’m most worried about is seeing how it doesn’t work for the OpenAI guys.”
