OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is working with the US Department of Defense (DOD) on tools and services for the military. The news comes just days after the company updated its Terms of Service to remove the clause banning its AI from “military and warfare” applications.
As reported by Bloomberg (Paywall), OpenAI is working with the DOD and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on open-source cybersecurity tools for the government. This is in line with the AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) announced by DARPA towards the end of last year.
AIxCC brings together leading AI companies that will work with DARPA to make their cutting-edge technology and expertise available to challenge competitors. Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI will collaborate with DARPA to enable competitors to develop state-of-the-art cybersecurity systems.
As per the report, OpenAI is also in talks with the US government to address some of the pressing issues in the country including preventing veteran suicide. Anna Makanju, vice president of global affairs at OpenAI told Bloomberg that OpenAI still has a ban on "using its tech to develop weapons, destroy property or harm people".
Because we previously had what was essentially a blanket prohibition on military, many people thought that would prohibit many of these use cases, which people think are very much aligned with what we want to see in the world
OpenAI has made changes lately to ensure its AI is not used to spread misinformation and that does not interfere with the US Presidential election. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI said, "Elections are a huge deal. I think it’s good that we have a lot of anxiety."
This comes just a month after Microsoft"s Bing AI was accused of offering false answers to questions about some 2023 elections. Microsoft has also introduced a new deepfake detection tool that would help political parties show that images created by them, such as ads and videos, are real and have not been changed by AI tools.