Open AIChatGPT maker and one of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence companies, said today that it has partnered with Anduril, a defense startup that makes missiles, drones and software for the US military. It is the latest in a series of similar announcements made recently by major Silicon Valley tech companies, which have been keen to establish closer ties with the defense industry.
“OpenAI builds AI to benefit as many people as possible and supports US-led efforts to ensure the technology upholds democratic values,” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in a statement Wednesday.
OpenAI’s AI models will be used to improve systems used for air defense, Brian Schimpf, co-founder and CEO of Anduril, said in the statement. “Together, we are committed to developing responsible solutions that enable military and intelligence operators to make faster and more accurate decisions in high-pressure situations,” he said.
OpenAI’s technology will be used to “assess drone threats more quickly and accurately, giving operators the information they need to make better decisions and stay out of harm’s way,” says a former OpenAI employee who left the company earlier this year and spoke about the condition. of anonymity to protect their professional relationships.
OpenAI changed its policy on using its AI for military applications earlier this year. A source who worked at the company at the time says some employees were unhappy with the change, but there were no outright protests. the us army already use some OpenAI technology, according to a report by The Intercept.
Anduril is developing an advanced air defense system that includes a swarm of small autonomous aircraft that work together on missions. These aircraft are controlled through an interface powered by a large language model, which interprets natural language commands and translates them into instructions that both human pilots and drones can understand and execute. Until now, Anduril has been using open source language models for testing purposes.
Anduril is not currently known to be using advanced AI to control its autonomous systems or allow them to make their own decisions. Such a measure would be riskier, especially given the unpredictability of current models.
A few years ago, many AI researchers in Silicon Valley were strongly opposed to working with the military. In 2018, thousands of Google employees staged protests over the company supplying AI to the US Department of Defense through what was then known within the Pentagon as Project Maven. Google later withdrew from the project.