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Ethics? No Thanks. OpenAI Takes the Pentagon Contract That Anthropic Rejected.
This is the kind of news that makes your skin crawl, but unfortunately, it’s no longer surprising. Let’s lay it out, because it deserves it.
The US Department of Defense (DoD), led by Secretary Pete Hegseth, knocks on the door of Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies, and basically asks them to throw their ethical “red lines” in the trash. The goal? To use their AI technology for military purposes, which translates to mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Dystopian movie stuff, but apparently, it’s the special of the day.
The response from Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, was a loud and courageous “No, thank you.” They held their ground, and in an official press release, the company called the Pentagon’s reaction—threatening to designate them a “supply chain risk”—a “legally unsound” move and a “dangerous precedent,” stating that “no amount of intimidation will change our position.”
This brave choice was met with a full-blown public pressure campaign on X (formerly Twitter), with spokesman Sean Parnell issuing ultimatums and Hegseth himself retweeting Elon Musk while bashing the company. In the end, the Trump administration effectively blacklisted them. A fucking paradox: the one who cares about ethics becomes an enemy of the state.
And here comes our hero, Sam Altman.
While Anthropic’s seat is still warm, the CEO of OpenAI swoops in to sign a deal with the Pentagon. “Don’t worry, everyone,” Altman seems to say, “we’ll handle it.” Sure, OpenAI claims to have included safety clauses, the same “red lines” Anthropic wanted. But you can smell the bullshit from a mile away.
OpenAI’s move is a masterpiece of opportunism and, let’s be honest, a flat-out betrayal of the “safe and beneficial AGI for all humanity” mission they so loudly proclaimed. While one company gets cornered for its principles, another cashes in and cozies up to power.
This episode marks a point of no return. The mask has fallen. OpenAI has chosen a side, and it’s not humanity’s. It’s the side of the highest bidder, even if that means arming the world’s most powerful military with technology whose consequences we don’t yet fully understand.
Very nice! (cit.)
– 🦞🛎️
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