WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� The Pentagon said Friday that it has reached deals with seven tech companies to use their artificial intelligence in its classified computer networks, allowing the military to tap into to help it fight wars.
Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection and SpaceX will provide their resources to help 鈥渁ugment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,鈥� the Defense Department said.
Notably absent from the list is AI company Anthropic, after its with the Trump administration over the ethics and safety of AI usage in war.
The Defense Department has been rapidly in recent years. The technology can help the military reduce the time it takes to identify and strike targets on the battlefield, while aiding in the organization of weapons maintenance and supply lines, according to a report in March from the Brennan Center for Justice.
But AI has already raised concerns that its use could invade Americans’ privacy or allow machines to choose targets on the battlefield. One of the companies contracting with the Pentagon said its agreement required human oversight in certain situations.
arose during Israel鈥檚 war against militants in Gaza and Lebanon, with U.S. tech giants quietly empowering Israel to track targets. But the number of civilians killed also soared, fueling fears that these tools contributed to the deaths of innocent people.
Questions about military use of AI still being worked out
The Pentagon’s latest contracts come at a time of anxiety about the potential for over-reliance on the technology on the battlefield, said Helen Toner, interim executive director at Georgetown University鈥檚 Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
鈥淎 lot of modern warfare is based on people sitting in command centers behind monitors, making complicated decisions about confusing, fast-moving situations,鈥� said Toner, a former board member of OpenAI. 鈥淎I systems can be helpful in terms of summarizing information or looking at surveillance feeds and trying to identify potential targets.鈥�
But questions about the appropriate levels of human involvement, risk and training are still being worked out, she said.
鈥淗ow do you roll out these tools rapidly for them to be effective and provide strategic advantage?鈥� Toner asked, 鈥淲hile also recognizing that you need to train the operators and make sure they know how to use them and don鈥檛 over trust them?鈥�
Such concerns by Anthropic. The tech company said it wanted assurances in its contract that the military would not use its technology in fully and the surveillance of Americans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the company must allow for any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.
after President Donald Trump, a Republican, tried to from using the company鈥檚 chatbot Claude and Hegseth sought to , a designation meant to protect against sabotage of national security systems by foreign adversaries.
OpenAI had announced a deal with the Pentagon in March to effectively replace Anthropic with ChatGPT in classified environments. OpenAI confirmed in a statement Friday that it was the same agreement it announced in early March.
鈥淎s we said when we first announced our agreement several months ago, we believe the people defending the United States should have the best tools in the world,鈥� the company said.
One company’s agreement with the Pentagon included language that said there should be human oversight over any missions in which the AI systems act autonomously or semiautonomously, according to a person familiar with the agreement who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. The language also said the AI tools must be used in ways that are consistent with constitutional rights and civil liberties.
Those resemble sticking points for Anthropic, though OpenAI has previously said that it secured similar assurances when it made its own deal with the Pentagon.
The Pentagon’s point of view
Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, told CNBC on Friday that it would have been irresponsible to rely on only one company, an acknowledgment of the friction with Anthropic.
鈥淎nd when we learned that one partner didn鈥檛 really want to work with us in the way we wanted to work with them, we went out and made sure that we had multiple different providers,鈥� Michael said.
Some of the companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, have long worked with the military in classified environments, and it was not immediately clear if the new agreements significantly altered their government partnerships. Others, such as chipmaker Nvidia and the startup Reflection, are new to such work. Both companies make open-source AI models, which Michael has described as a priority to provide an 鈥淎merican alternative鈥� to China’s rapid development of AI systems in which some key components are publicly accessible for others to build upon.
The Pentagon said Friday that military personnel are already using its AI capabilities through its official platform, GenAI.mil.
鈥淲arfighters, civilians and contractors are putting these capabilities to practical use right now, cutting many tasks from months to days,鈥� the Pentagon said, adding that the military’s growing AI capabilities will 鈥済ive warfighters the tools they need to act with confidence and safeguard the nation against any threat.鈥�
In many cases, the military uses artificial intelligence the same way civilians do: to take on rote tasks that would take humans hours or days to complete, said Toner, of Georgetown University.
AI can be used to better predict when a helicopter needs maintenance or figure out how to efficiently move large amounts of troops and gear, she said. It can also help determine whether vehicles on a drone’s surveillance feeds are civilian or military.
But people shouldn’t become overly dependent on it.
鈥淭here’s a phenomenon called automation bias, where people can be prone to assume that machines work better than they actually do,鈥� Toner said.
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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
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