OpenAIs Sam Altman fends off painful backlash to Pentagon AI deal — including chalk-wielding activists | Latest Tech News
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is scrambling to head off a backlash over the tech giant’s deal with the Pentagon — defending it in entrance of employees at a tense all-hands assembly on Tuesday after protesters exterior its San Francisco headquarters urged workers to give up, The Post has realized.
The AI company announced its deal on Friday — just hours after President Trump blasted Anthropic as “leftwing nut jobs” and ordered all federal businesses to stop working with them. The deal occurred so fast – and with only imprecise particulars about its construction initially revealed – that Altman himself has admitted it was rushed.
Outside the company’s San Francisco places of work on Monday, a group of activists wrote messages in chalk on the sidewalk ripping the Pentagon deal. The scrawled messages included phrases like “Is it time to quit?” and “Orwell warned us.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to media at the OpenAI data middle in Abilene, Texas, on Sept. 23. REUTERS
Other messages directed at OpenAI workers said, “Will you spy on your neighbors?” and, “Can America trust you?” according to photos that circulated on X.
A source close to the scenario questioned whether or not the protest was funded by a rival.
“Turns out, it was artists who had messages on their phones about what to write,” the source told The Post. “It wasn’t even real activists.”
At an all-hands assembly on Tuesday, Altman insisted that OpenAI had made the fitting call by agreeing to work with the Pentagon, although he admitted that dashing the initial announcement was a mistake, a second source acquainted with the matter said.
“To try so hard to do the right thing and get so absolutely like, personally crushed for it — and I know this is happening to all of you too, so I feel terrible for subjecting you all to this — is really painful,” Altman said at the assembly, according to sources.
At one level during the assembly, an worker quipped that they had been glad OpenAI secured the contract and not Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot, drawing laughter from the gang, a source said.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei appears to be like on as he takes half in a session on AI during the World Economic Forum annual assembly in Davos on Jan. 23, 2025. AFP via Getty Images
Altman added that the Department of War respects “our expertise on understanding the limitations of technology and where we need restrictions” while also making it clear that firms mustn’t weigh in on how technology is deployed in particular operations.
“The thing that they have been extremely clear with us on is, we’ll take general understanding from you all and your expertise about where the technology is a good fit and where it’s not a good fit,” Altman said. “You do not get to make operational decisions. That belongs with the [War Secretary Pete Hegseth].”
The temper at the assembly was described as respectful, with workers drilling down on the contract’s technical particulars in an effort to perceive how precisely the partnership will work.
The initial announcement last Friday supplied fodder to critics, both inside and exterior, who have long accused OpenAI of being more involved about income than security. As of Tuesday, more than 100 current OpenAI workers had signed an open letter urging the company’s executives to “refuse the Department of War’s current demands.”
Some OpenAI workers have even voiced their considerations in public, with research scientist Aidan McLaughlin writing on X, “I personally don’t think this deal was worth it.”
One source close to the scenario insisted that the response inside the company has been largely constructive – exterior of a small group of employees who have questioned why OpenAI bought concerned.
“From the internal messages, people are pragmatic and agree that Friday night was perhaps a little rushed and not the best communication,” the individual said.
“But now that there is more information, it feels like everybody is generally positive. save for like these like 30 people who are always the ones questioning slash rabble rousing.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon on Monday. AP
Anthropic miffed Hegseth and other officers after it refused to take away safeguards blocking the US army from utilizing its AI fashions for mass surveillance of Americans or to energy weapons that can fire without human oversight.
OpenAI’s deal contains language making certain protections around those same purple strains. Since the initial announcement on Friday night, OpenAI and the Pentagon have added further language to their contract language designed to solidify safeguards around army use.
In an inner memo he later shared on X, Altman said OpenAI entered talks because it was “genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy.”
“Good learning experience for me as we face higher-stakes decisions in the future,” he added.
Altman said he reiterated to Pentagon management that Anthropic shouldn’t be designated as a “supply chain risk” – a label usually reserved for international entities that threaten national security.
“We hope the [Department of War] offers them the same terms we’ve agreed to,” Altman wrote.
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