The Pentagon is urging artificial intelligence companies to make their AI tools available on the department’s classified and unclassified networks without imposing the same guardrails that the AI firms implement on ordinary users of their tools.
Emil Michael, the Chief Technology Officer at the Pentagon, told tech executives during a Tuesday event at the White House that the U.S. military wants the companies’ AI models available on classified and unclassified domains of the military. The objective is to use those models while deploying AI in all aspects of the military that require frontier technologies.
The push comes as the Pentagon is conducting negotiations with American AI firms that had been awarded contracts to work with the military on future projects that could require the use of AI in frontline missions involving drones, cyberattacks and robots.
This request is bound to raise the stakes in the debate regarding how the U.S. military can leverage AI while pushing back against the traditional safeguards that tech firms impose on how their technology can be used. Many tech firms have their AI tools already being used on unclassified military administration domains and only Anthropic has its gen-AI tool being used on classified domains.
The military wants to use AI to support data synthesis while decisions are being made. Unclassified domains largely focus on administrative functions while classified domains focus on high-level and secret tasks like weapons targeting and planning military missions. Tech firms are concerned that allowing their models to be used without any guardrails could create risks since all AI models are currently prone to making errors that could be deadly in combat settings.
So far, deals have been struck between OpenAI, Google and the Pentagon on the use of the firms’ AI tools on an unclassified military domain referred to as genai.mil. This network is largely used for administrative tasks. The AI firms agreed to remove a large fraction of the restrictions and guardrails typically imposed on the users of these tools.
Anthropic has yet to sign a similar agreement after its officials pushed back against the requirement to remove the safeguards that limit the risks that could result from the use of the generative AI tool, Claude, of the company. It is not clear whether the company will stick to its position or a compromise will be reached to let the military use the firm’s tools on its classified networks.
What isn’t in doubt is the affirmation that comes from a major institution expressing interest in deploying AI tools made by the companies involved in the negotiations with the Pentagon. Other tech giants like Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) also enjoy large contracts with federal government departments for services like cloud computing.
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