Apple Intelligence provider OpenAI has secured a $200 million contract to provide artificial intelligence support to the U.S. Defense Department.
Thomas Barrabi for The New York Post:
The deal was announced months after OpenAI first revealed that it would collaborate with tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey’s defense firm Anduril to develop AI for “national security missions.”
“Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
The ChatGPT maker’s move to work with the US military marked a departure from the company’s earlier position. The company’s terms of service once contained language stating that its AI products were prohibited for use in “military and warfare” circumstances – but the wording was removed last year.
MacDailyNews Note: In its “Introducing OpenAI for Government” official blog post, published on Monday, OpenAI states:
Today we’re launching OpenAI for Government, a new initiative focused on bringing our most advanced AI tools to public servants across the United States. We’re supporting the U.S. government’s efforts in adopting best-in-class technology and deploying these tools in service of the public good. Our goal is to unlock AI solutions that enhance the capabilities of government workers, help them cut down on the red tape and paperwork, and let them do more of what they come to work each day to do: serve the American people.
OpenAI for Government consolidates our existing efforts to provide our technology to the U.S. government—including previously announced customers and partnerships as well as our ChatGPT Gov product—under one umbrella as we expand this work. Our established collaborations with the U.S. National Labs, the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, NIH, and the Treasury will all be brought under OpenAI for Government.
Through OpenAI for Government, we are offering U.S. federal, state, and local governments access to:
• Our most capable models within secure and compliant environments, including through ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Gov
• Custom models for national security, offered on a limited basis
• Hands-on support
• Insight into what’s coming next so government customers can plan ahead and anticipate new ways to apply our tools to their most important work
We are proud to share that our first partnership under this new OpenAI for Government initiative will be a pilot program with the U.S. Department of Defense through their Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). This contract, with a $200 million ceiling, will bring OpenAI’s industry-leading expertise to help the Defense Department identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations, from improving how service members and their families get health care, to streamlining how they look at program and acquisition data, to supporting proactive cyber defense. All use cases must be consistent with OpenAI’s usage policies and guidelines.
Across these efforts, we’re aiming to improve both the day-to-day experience of public service and to help government employees feel more empowered, more efficient, and more supported in their critical missions. We are already seeing how OpenAI can help public servants at the state level spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on high-impact work. For example, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania employees participating in an OpenAI pilot program(opens in a new window) found ChatGPT helped reduce the time spent on routine tasks by about 105 minutes per day. And, at the federal level, we’re already seeing how it can improve the quality of services delivered. At Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs we are deploying OpenAI models to accelerate scientific research, bolster national security readiness, and drive public sector innovation.
We are just getting started, and we look forward to helping U.S. government leaders harness AI to better serve the public. We are committed to working in close partnership with agencies, advancing their missions with powerful tools that are safe, and secure.
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