OpenAI is partnering with defense tech company Anduril

As portion of the partnership, OpenAI will merge its package into Anduril’s counterdrone systems, which observe and return down drones. It’s OpenAI’s first business pinch a defense contractor — and a important reversal of its earlier stance towards the military. OpenAI’s position of work erstwhile banned “military and warfare” usage of its technology, but it softened its position connected subject usage earlier this year, changing its position of service successful January to region the proscription.

“OpenAI builds AI to use arsenic galore group arsenic possible, and supports U.S.-led efforts to guarantee the exertion upholds antiauthoritarian values,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said successful a statement. “Our business pinch Anduril will thief guarantee OpenAI exertion protects U.S. subject personnel, and will thief the nationalist information organization understand and responsibly usage this exertion to support our citizens safe and free.”

As the Wall Street Journal notes, Anduril — presently weighted astatine $14 cardinal — has a $200 cardinal counterdrone systems statement pinch the Marine Corps. But OpenAI won’t conscionable use financially from its Anduril partnership; it besides stands to summation governmental clout. Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey was an early protagonist of president-elect Donald Trump, and besides has ties to Elon Musk, 1 of the heads of the still-nebulous (and still nonexistent) Department of Government Efficiency. And the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think-tank moving intimately pinch the Trump modulation team, has projected that Trump clasp AI to create a caller “Manhattan Project” for defense.