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Title: Sam Altman Answers Questions on X.com About Pentagon Deal, Threats to
Anthropic

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/03/01/0233...

Saturday afternoon Sam Altman announced he'd start answering questions on
X.com about OpenAI's work with America's Department of War - and all the
developments over the past few days. (After that department's negotions had
failed with Anthropic, they announced they'd stop using Anthropic's
technology and threatened to designate it a "Supply-Chain Risk to National
Security". Then they'd reached a deal for OpenAI's technology - though Altman
says it includes OpenAI's own similar prohibitions against using their
products for domestic mass surveillance and requiring "human responsibility"
for the use of force in autonomous weapon systems.) Altman said Saturday that
enforcing that "Supply-Chain Risk" designation on Anthropic "would be very
bad for our industry and our country, and obviously their company. We said
[that] to the Department of War before and after. We said that part of the
reason we were willing to do this quickly was in the hopes of de-
esclation.... We should all care very much about the precedent... To say it
very clearly: I think this is a very bad decision from the Department of War
and I hope they reverse it. If we take heat for strongly criticizing it, so
be it." Altman also said that for a long time, OpenAI was planning to do "non-
classified work only," but this week found the Department of War "flexible on
what we needed..." Sam Altman: The reason for rushing is an attempt to de-
escalate the situation. I think the current path things are on is dangerous
for Anthropic, healthy competition, and the U.S. We negotiated to make sure
similar terms would be offered to all other AI labs. I know what it's like to
feel backed into a corner, and I think it's worth some empathy to the
Department of War. They are... a very dedicated group of people with, as I
mentioned, an extremely important mission. I cannot imagine doing their work.
Our industry tells them "The technology we are building is going to be the
high order bit in geopolitical conflict. China is rushing ahead. You are very
behind." And then we say "But we won't help you, and we think you are kind of
evil." I don't think I'd react great in that situation. I do not believe
unelected leaders of private companies should have as much power as our
democratically elected government. But I do think we need to help them.
Question: Are you worried at all about the potential for things to go really
south during a possible dispute over what's legal or not later on and be
deemed a supply chain risk...? Sam Altman: Yes, I am. If we have to take on
that fight we will, but it clearly exposes us to some risk. I am still very
hopeful this is going to get resolved, and part of why we wanted to act fast
was to help increase the chances of that... Question: Why the rush to sign
the deal ? Obviously the optics don't look great. Sam Altman: It was
definitely rushed, and the optics don't look good. We really wanted to de-
escalate things, and we thought the deal on offer was good. If we are right
and this does lead to a de-escalation between the Department of War and the
industry, we will look like geniuses, and a company that took on a lot of
pain to do things to help the industry. If not, we will continue to be
characterized as as rushed and uncareful. I don't where it's going to land,
but I have already seen promising signs. I think a good relationship between
the government and the companies developing this technology is critical over
the next couple of years... Question: What was the core difference why you
think the Department of War accepted OpenAI but not Anthropic? Sam Altman:
[...] We believe in a layered approach to safety--building a safety stack,
deploying FDEs [embedded Forward Deployed Engineers] and having our safety
and alignment researcher involved, deploying via cloud, working directly with
the Department of War. Anthropic seemed more focused on specific prohibitions
in the contract, rather than citing applicable laws, which we felt
comfortable with. We feel that it it's very important to build safe system,
and although documents are also important, I'd clearly rather rely on
technical safeguards if I only had to pick one... I think Anthropic may have
wanted more operational control than we did... Question: Were the terms that
you accepted the same ones Anthropic rejected? Sam Altman: No, we had some
different ones. But our terms would now be available to them (and others) if
they wanted. Question: Will you turn off the tool if they violate the rules?
Sam Altman: Yes, we will turn it off in that very unlikely event, but we
believe the U.S. government is an institution that does its best to follow
law and policy. What we won't do is turn it off because we disagree with a
particular (legal military) decision. We trust their authority. Questions
were also answered by OpenAI's head of National Security Partnerships (who at
one point posted that they'd managed the White House response to the Snowden
disclosures and helped write the post-Snowden policies constraining
surveillance during the Obama years.) And they stressed that with OpenAI's
deal with Department of War, "We control how we train the models and what
types of requests the models refuse." Question: Are employees allowed to opt
out of working on Department of War-related projects? Answer: We won't ask
employees to support Department of War-related projects if they don't want
to. Question: How much is the deal worth? Answer: It's a few million $,
completely inconsequential compared to our $20B+ in revenue, and definitely
not worth the cost of a PR blowup. We're doing it because it's the right
thing to do for the country, at great cost to ourselves, not because of
revenue impact... Question: Can you explicitly state which specific technical
safeguard OpenAI has that allowed you to sign what Anthropic called a 'threat
to democratic values'? Answer: We think the deal we made has more guardrails
than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including
Anthropic's. Other AI labs (including Anthropic) have reduced or removed
their safety guardrails and relied primarily on usage policies as their
primary safeguards in national security deployments. Usage policies, on their
own, are not a guarantee of anything. Any responsible deployment of AI in
classified environments should involve layered safeguards including a prudent
safety stack, limits on deployment architecture, and the direct involvement
of AI experts in consequential AI use cases. These are the terms we
negotiated in our contract. They also detailed OpenAI's position on LinkedIn:
Deployment architecture matters more than contract language. Our contract
limits our deployment to cloud API. Autonomous systems require inference at
the edge. By limiting our deployment to cloud API, we can ensure that our
models cannot be integrated directly into weapons systems, sensors, or other
operational hardware... Instead of hoping contract language will be enough,
our contract allows us to embed forward deployed engineers, commits to giving
us visibility into how models are being used, and we have the ability to
iterate on safety safeguards over time. If our team sees that our models
aren't refusing queries they should, or there's more operational risk than we
expected, our contract allows us to make modifications at our discretion.
This gives us far more influence over outcomes (and insight into possible
abuse) than a static contract provision ever could. U.S. law already
constrains the worst outcomes. We accepted the "all lawful uses" language
proposed by the Department, but required them to define the laws that
constrained them on surveillance and autonomy directly in the contract. And
because laws can change, having this codified in the contract protects
against changes in law or policy that we can't anticipate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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