The DOD contract of $ 200 million from Openai could tighten Frenemy Microsoft

Openai said Monday The US Department of Defense has granted him a contract of up to $ 200 million to help the agency identify and build prototype systems that use its border models for administrative tasks and more.

OPENAI provides some examples of possible tasks, such as helping soldiers to obtain health care, rationalization of data on various programs and “support proactive cyber-defense”. The company has also said that “all use cases must comply with use policies and OPENAI directives”.

THE Dod ad Used a slightly simpler wording. He indicates: “Under this award, the interpreter will develop prototype capacities of the border AI to meet the critical challenges of national security in the fields of war and business.”

It remains to be seen that this reference to the fight against war applies to weapons themselves or simply to other areas associated with wars, such as documents. OPENAI directives prohibit individual users from using Chatgpt or its APIs to develop or use weapons. However, Openai has removed the explicit prohibitions of “military and war” under its service conditions in January 2024.

Given how much some powerful people of Silicon Valley warned against the dangers of the advanced LLM models of China, it is not surprising that the DOD wishes to use Openai to what it wants. For example, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of VC Andreessen Horowitz, an Openai investor, recently appeared on the Podcast “UNCAPT” by Jack Altman (brother of Sam Altman). Andreessen described the race between Chinese AI and The models of the Western world as a “cold war”.

However, perhaps an equally interesting part of this announcement is what she says about Openai increasingly tense relationship with its main Microsoft investor.

Microsoft has thousands of contracts With the federal government worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For decades, he has implemented the strict security protocols necessary for the government – especially the DOD – uses its cloud.

OPENAI announced this agreement as part of its new broader program “OpenAi for Government”, which consolidates a number of other programs it uses to sell goods directly to government agencies, including the US National Labs, the Air Force research laboratory, NASA, NIH and Treasury, according to the company.

But it was not until April that Microsoft announced The DOD had approved its Azure Openai service for all classified levels. Now the DOD also goes directly to the source. From Microsoft’s point of view: Ouch.

Neither OPENAI nor Microsoft immediately responded to a request for comments.