An Anduril Industries Sentry surveillance tower (Simon Wohlfahrt/Getty Images)

OpenAI strikes deal with Anduril to bring its AI to the battlefield

12/4/24 4:44PM

Since the Biden administration gave the all clear for AI to be used in national security and defense, AI companies have been tripping over each other to announce their pivot to military applications.

In November, Palantir partnered with Anthropic to bring its Claude AI models to national-security applications via Amazon’s AWS cloud computing platform.

Not to be left out of the rush to embed AI systems into battlefield defense and weapons systems, today OpenAI and defense contractor Anduril Industries announced a partnership that runs counter to a previous public policy about how OpenAI would allow its technology to be used.

In January, OpenAI quietly changed the language of its usage policy, removing a section that disallowed “Activity that has high risk of physical harm, including: Weapons development; Military and warfare.”

“Our partnership with Anduril will help ensure OpenAI technology protects U.S. military personnel, and will help the national security community understand and responsibly use this technology to keep our citizens safe and free,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in the press release.

In a press release announcing the new partnership, Anduril said that OpenAI’s GPT-4o and OpenAI o1 models would be used in drone defense systems to identify airborne threats. The press release said:

“The Anduril and OpenAI strategic partnership will focus on improving the nation’s counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) and their ability to detect, assess and respond to potentially lethal aerial threats in real-time.”

Anduril Industries was founded by Palmer Luckey, founder and CEO of virtual-reality headset company Oculus, which was sold to Meta in 2014 for $2 billion.

Meta has also been pursuing national-security and defense contracts for its Llama 3 AI model.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Thousands of UK union Airbus workers plan to strike for 10 days in September amid a contract dispute.

The union workers build wings for Airbus’ commercial jets, threatening a production slowdown for the European plane maker.

As Airbus’ labor tension builds, rival Boeing’s has already boiled over: earlier this month, more than 3,000 Boeing workers who build military aircraft started a strike that remains ongoing. The action came less than a year after the company faced a two-month stoppage from a machinist strike.

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In July, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced his own political party, the America Party — a move intended to “give you back your freedom.” What it did at the time was invoke the wrath of President Donald Trump and send the stock down.

A month and a half later, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Musk is “pumping the brakes” on his third party.

According to the Journal, “Musk has told allies that he wants to focus his attention on his companies and is reluctant to alienate powerful Republicans by starting a third party that could siphon off GOP voters.” He also wants to maintain ties with Vice President JD Vance, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate for 2028.

What happened?

For one, earlier this month Tesla’s board approved a roughly $30 billion interim pay package that Musk will only realize if he remains at the company for two years.

The stock isn’t moving on the news so far, but investors and analysts typically see Musk’s focus on his public company as a good thing.

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What happened?

For one, earlier this month Tesla’s board approved a roughly $30 billion interim pay package that Musk will only realize if he remains at the company for two years.

The stock isn’t moving on the news so far, but investors and analysts typically see Musk’s focus on his public company as a good thing.

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