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OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract
- Bjorkbat 1y ago[flagged]
- ninjin 1y agoMy favourite movie of all time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove The writing and acting is superb and the same goes for the sets and camera work. Come to think of it, the only thing I dislike (and greatly so) is the trailer as it to me profoundly fails to communicate the atmosphere of the movie.
- relaxing 1y ago[flagged]
- relaxing 1y ago[flagged]
- GartzenDeHaes 1y agoGen. Ripper is getting some validation now that fluoride is being banned in some places.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- upghost 1y agoDoes anyone have any idea what the DoD could possibly want from OpenAI? Less accurate/more sycophantic missiles?
- 01100011 1y agoYou realize that the DoD has a huge amount of normal business work like logistics, project management, people management, benefits management, etc? Right?
- rkagerer 1y agoI suspect it's more than that. “Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Defense Department said.
- notesinthefield 1y ago“National security challenges” is incredibly broad, providing the right size of boots to USCG rescue swimmers could be considered a national security challenge.
- koakuma-chan 1y agoit says _critical_
- kube-system 1y agoAin’t nothing more critical than rescue!
- XorNot 1y agoTrenchfoot was a substantial source of casualties in WW1, and looking after your feet is a top priority for every military force in the field.
- guywithahat 1y agoKnowing the DoD, I bet it's not. I bet they just want their own secure servers or some sort of corporate data/encryption management, and they're willing to pay out the nose to not have to use asksage or some terrible DoD friendly clone
- dluan 1y agodirectly hooking up the AI to the nuclear button is which chapter of the dont build the torment nexus book
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoThe epilogue.
- fabfoe 1y agoIsn’t that the Department of Energy that does that, not DoD?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- kevingadd 1y agoDoD would be involved in actual deployment of nukes, I would expect.
- okdood64 1y ago[flagged]
- Avicebron 1y agoLet's hope before they wire it directly to the controls "because speed" they've trained it on Stanislav Petrov up down and backwards..
- m3kw9 1y agoI don’t understand but that sounds funny
- ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov > On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to four more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm.
- ethbr1 1y agoThe irony is that he was both successful and a failure, a contradiction inherent in nuclear launch control. From a deterrence and military perspective, you want a robot on launch control. Every time, on orders, without fail. From a human and ethical perspective, you want a thinking individual with agency. Able evaluate orders and possibly disobey them. Curious at the height of the Cold War (and now), what percentage of launch officers were expected to disobey orders to launch. It had to have been >0%.
- layoric 1y agoThat should shore up their financials given their.. checks notes $12B in operational costs. /s Hope it's worth it.
- bix6 1y ago$10B run rate now so they can just plug the gap with $2B in ads!?! Hot DoD singles near you! Would you like me to generate an image of their stealth package ;) ?
- throw234234234 1y agoMy view is that it isn't really entirely about economics anymore at least on a traditional cost/benefit analysis basis. It is seen as a way to disrupt industries. Think of it more like war with arms race dynamics (winner takes all), or consolidation of power to capital over labor. Even if it is a net negative you need to play to stay in the game even if it disrupts your own revenue (e.g. Google) else lose entirely. I suspect the capital class would throw good money after bad to make AI viable especially since a lot of the costs are fixed in nature (i.e. in training runs, not per query).
- rvz 1y agoIsn't this part of the true definition of "AGI" and its all for the benefit of humanity? Or is it that are we finally realizing that we are getting scammed again on these so-called promises and it was all a grift. Maybe we should just wake up.
- lyu07282 1y agoPeople are practically irrelevant infants at this point. We are about to repeat the Iraq war, point by point with universal agreement. The same people in charge are recycling the same propaganda, selling the same lies to in many cases quite literally the same people again and it's working, so I don't know why you are expecting anyone to ever "wake up".
- trhway 1y agoOn the way to benefit all humanity MS helped Sam back then, and now MS will get to wake up to the real Sam :) https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/openai-executives-have-discussed-accusing-microsoft-anticompetitive-behavior-wsj-2025-06-16/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... “OpenAI executives have considered accusing Microsoft, the company's major backer, of anticompetitive behavior in their partnership … OpenAI's effort could involve seeking a federal regulatory review of the terms of its contract with Microsoft for potential violations of antitrust law, as well as a public campaign,…“
- more_corn 1y agoThis gives me a sick feeling of unease.
- bluealienpie 1y agoThat's the rational response.
- MaxPock 1y ago[flagged]
- ungreased0675 1y agoJudging from how the DoD currently buys software, lots of money will be spent, many headlines will be written, awards will be handed out, and zero software will make it on to user workstations. End users will continue to use Excel for everything.
- tonyhart7 1y ago200 mil is chump change for them, if prototype turned to be good then good for them but if its not then they are not worry
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago200 mil for a government contract is peanuts when you see how much taxpayer money governments loose via waste and corruption
- raizer88 1y agoDOGE found basically nothing, and they worked with an axe trying to cut anything that come close to waste. So I am not sure where you see all this "waste and corruption".
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoBad faith argument. Why are you moving the discussion to DOGE when that's not what I was talking about? You know the word "governments" that I used, means a lot more than the current TRUMP administration, right? Broaden your mind and PoV. And also, how can you say with a straight face there isn't ongoing and never has been waste and corruption in any government? Again, think for yourself, ignore $CURRENT_EVENTS. Look at your nation's government contracts that funnel taxpayer money to private pockets, then look at the output. Has there been value delivered proportional to the money spent at reasonable market rates? If not, then money was definitely wasted via incompetence, pocketed via corruption, or both. This is so prevalent and is has become the norm everywhere for so long, that people are not even giving it a second thought anymore when it comes to government corruption, but somehow people want to be spoon-fed sources as if it's an unbelievable conspiracy theory.
- kachapopopow 1y ago[flagged]
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- gxs 1y agoThis, this is why I have such an issue with the amount of taxes I pay Not because I’m anti social programs the way people like to immediately assume, but because of dumb shit like this that I have no control over
- kube-system 1y agoHonestly, why do you think it is dumb? I think it is pretty well established that LLMs can be a great time saver when used appropriately. Why wouldn’t you want that productivity gain at the government level?
- _def 1y agoReading and writing reports when peoples lives are on the line is arguably a hot topic, no?
- kube-system 1y agoOne would imagine that a $200m contract would come with at least some minimal amounts of guidance on best practices. The DoD is not a spring chicken with it comes to automation. They’ve been a perennial early adopter.
- ringeryless 1y agoand LLMs are the opposite of automation, the opposite of a human intention amplifier like CAD CAM, or chef puppet ansible terraform whatever, aka non deterministic
- ZeroTalent 1y agoLLMs enable amplified automation. Example: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.13.25329541v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.13.25329541v... At my company, we use LLMs for financial analysis that previously required hundreds of employees, and that work would have been inferior anyway because it's so hard to make so many people to communicate well to identify correlations.
- gsf_emergency 1y agoFurther context https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/senator-warren-presses-pentagon-on-competitive-ai-contracts-as-musks-grok-gains-traction/ https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/senator-warren-presses-pent...
- pyuser583 1y agoI heard one thing AI is very good at declassifying documents.
- d--b 1y agoSo much for humanity’s greater good Sam.
- loandbehold 1y agoDepending on your political views it may be good if it helps USA keeping its military edge over China and preventing China from invading Taiwan.
- tehjoker 1y agoWhy do you even care about Taiwan?
- ringeryless 1y agosaid capabilities Hegseth is utterly gutting and undermining. It's more likely China's next gen aircraft one should be wary of, than their AI. (as previewed in recent Indian Pakistani air engagements) i really see this so-called AI race as a bullet to be dodged; a bubble to be waited out. it has been relentlessly pushed from on top, and we always find really pushy FOMO as the main driver. I'm not impressed by non deterministic mechanisms that undo the zero overhead advantages hard won by decades of automation. this is not a CAD tool amplifying and articulating human intentions, but a vague floppy jelly blob of "i wonder what will come out"
- vasco 1y agoThere's invasions going on right now that aren't being prevented, no need for theoretical ones.
- lionkor 1y agoThanks, world police. The US is as good at being police as their own police officers are. Hit or miss, fatally.
- Ylpertnodi 1y agoer.....drones.
- Barrin92 1y ago
- bpodgursky 1y agoYou guys have no idea how many DoD man-hours are spent on jobs like "add up all the item counts in the inventory report and send a weekly email" Yes maybe OpenAI is developing killer drones or maybe (imo likely) it's licensing a FedRAMP complaint AI for normal business work.
- muglug 1y agoYou don’t need AI to complain about FedRAMP
- bpodgursky 1y agoTechnically I can still edit that post but now I think it's better this way.
- eastbound 1y agoOpenAI was supposed to be open; After making it a private company, it will become governmental & defense. Good luck to Elon Musk for his trial for the open-source-ness of the organization.
- khurs 1y agoIf Elon had not quit, would it be different? As he is already involved in governmental and defence.
- hunglee2 1y ago[flagged]
- GoatInGrey 1y ago$200M is very small when it comes to the world of US defense. Combined with this being formally labeled as a pilot, this can be safely ignored until they reach IOC. Though what this signals is a change in strategic direction regarding autonomous capability. While they won't be rigging an LLM onto a drone, there are many cyber and administrative problem spaces that exist in defense that AI products could meaningfully address.
- Aeolun 1y ago> While they won't be rigging an LLM onto a drone You say that very confidently, but I’m extremely skeptical of that being an actual limit.
- optimalsolver 1y ago>IOC Immediate or cancel?
- JohnKemeny 1y agoInitial operating capability or initial operational capability (IOC) is the state achieved when a capability is available in its minimum usefully deployable form. The term is often used in government or military procurement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_operating_capability https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_operating_capability
- medstrom 1y agoSo MVP (minimum viable product).
- smcin 1y agoThe DoD equivalent of MVP, that is.
- xpe 1y agoInitial Operating Capability (IOC) is notably different from how many people think of Minimum Viable Product (MVP). From the Wikipedia page on IOC: > "In general, attained when some units and/or organizations in the force structure scheduled to receive a system have received it and have the ability to employ and maintain it." Contrast with these quotes from [1]: > I have long defined minimum viable product as the smallest possible product that has three critical characteristics: people choose to use it or buy it; people can figure out how to use it; and we can deliver it when we need it with the resources available – also known as valuable, usable and feasible. > I love the concept popularized by Eric Ries of the smallest possible experiment to test a specific hypothesis, but I refer to that that as an “MVP Test” so that people don’t confuse an experiment with a product. [1]: https://www.svpg.com/minimum-viable-product/ https://www.svpg.com/minimum-viable-product/
- beezlebroxxxxxx 1y agoDespite what every AI exec will say publicly, I'm pretty sure they're salivating at the prospect of war/defense related applications of AI. There's just too much money floating around in the military industrial complex for them to ignore. This is doubly so if the "business" part of your AI company is about as solid as a fart in the wind.
- jmsdnns 1y agoIf you say "china" to any of them, you'll see how very true your words are.
- 93po 1y agoi don’t think they actually care about the applications. I think what really matters to them is making money as the middleman between AI providers and the government, pushing whatever flashy-sounding nonsense will keep the generals happy, especially the ones getting treated to thousand-dollar steak dinners and promised cushy private-sector jobs.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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- bryanrasmussen 1y agoStop shooting at me, damn it, I'm Sam Altman! Of course, that was an error on my part. I should only be shooting at other people and actually not in the part of the city at all, it's definitely a mistake on my part and I will rectify immediately. Thank you again for pointing it out to me! You're still shooting at me!
- nopelynopington 1y agoYou're absolutely right! I've stopped shooting now, and I've also taken all the bullets out of my gun Bang
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- darqis 1y agoYes, teach the machines how to kill life, whatever could go wrong...
- submeta 1y agoSo DoD will use OpenAI to write tweets bashing "the enemies of the empire"? They realise that Tucker Carlson and the likes are turning against forever wars, so they must deploy other tactics. First Palantir used against US citizens. Now this.
- andrzejalatk 1y ago[dead]
- TrackerFF 1y agoIf I had to guess...they're going to implement some system that works on the air-gapped military infrastructure. As for exactly what? Could be for compiling data / generating reports / updating those pesky matlab files / what have you. When you work in defense, you have the option of rolling out heavily modified systems yourself, or go directly to a vendor, and purchase it from them. And depending on the size, it might not be feasible to do the former one.
- aprilthird2021 1y agoI always thought PsychoPass was more of a sci Fi fantasy than a textbook for world leaders
- mobiuscog 1y ago"Shall we play a game ?"
- pier25 1y agoI was thinking more of this other movie: "In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m."
- thrance 1y agoDOGE was never meant to cut "waste, fraud and abuse". It only existed to provide "plausible" reasons as to why they should cut essential programs like medicaid, medicare, social security... So they can now redistribute the stolen wealth to oligarchs through tax cuts and defense contracts. So, more waste, fraud and abuse, less equality, more debt for the poor, worse quality of life for almost everyone, and a national debt increasing exponentially. Can't believe people thought Trump would be good for the economy.
- Loughla 1y agoTrump's platform was primarily hurting those people that need to be hurt. Hurt the people that are ruining the country. Hurt the others because they're making our life worse. Improvement to the economy was always secondary. Please note: I do not condone nor agree with Donald Trump. I am trying to summarize his campaign speeches and platform.
- LeoPanthera 1y agoPlease put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.
- p1dda 1y agoHuge snub of Elon Musk's xAI. OpenAI is basically anti-Trump yet he still went with them. Says a lot about Trump and Musk.
- Applejinx 1y agoI'm not sure I'd call it that, but if so, that's interesting. My criticism of Trump and Musk is that they are more faithful to the interests of Russia than the US. Snubbing Musk's stuff, in that light, would be entirely appropriate. The military has surely seen what happened when DOGE got access to computer systems and then immediately the systems were opened to Russian IPs. The military might well have an opinion on the merits of that scenario.
- khurs 1y agoOnly if it was the one and only contract… Governments usually have multiple, SpaceX is the biggest NASA one but is one of many.
- pmkary 1y agoFor the rest of you at the end of adapting the "OpenAI is Evil" spectrum.
- crazymoka 1y agoIt's all a pony show.
- 1970-01-01 1y agoSeems like we're asking all the wrong questions or we're now completely oblivious to the word open in OpenAI. So, where exactly will "our" new $200M worth of code be living? GitHub?
- yb6677 1y ago[dead]
- runamuck 1y agoFor decades innovation died in the "Valley of Death" stage of the DOD acquisition lifestyle. R&D never quite made it to operations, especially if the tech would disrupt lobby heavy "Primes." The (pretty) new org, DIU helped champion some new contract vehicles - like the CSO, which makes it "easy" for the DOD to buy and deploy Silicone Valley tech. (I only base this on my reading of the book "Unit X" about the DIU, so I recommend you read it if you want to business w/ the DOD in 2025).
- Xplan 1y ago[dead]
- mark_l_watson 1y agoMaybe not a bad thing, let’s see how effectively the government can purchase and use AI tools as sidekicks for government employees. AI systems running on autopilot in the federal government is a scary thought, but as productivity enhancing tools, right on!
- black_13 1y ago[dead]
- paulvnickerson 1y agoPaul Graham tends to be against Silicon Valley participation in the defense industry, while Marc Andreessen is all for it. Palmer Lucky makes a very good case why AI applications in military are a very good thing, and I tend to agree with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooMXEwl7N8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooMXEwl7N8Y It's American technology and industry that won the major wars of the 20th century. If Western technology companies abdicate that responsibility, we will all need to learn Mandarin.
- Aliabid94 1y agoWhat has China done that comes even close to what the US has done or supported all over the Middle East, esp Iraq and Gaza?
- badosu 1y agoI really appreciated the information I was unaware of folks in the industry. Also a pretty acceptable, and hopefully self evident, statement that technology and industry are relevant to "winning wars" (regardless of nation), even with the loaded assumption on "[american tech and industry]... won the major wars of the 20th century". > If Western technology companies abdicate that responsibility, we will all need to learn Mandarin. This bit killed it for me. It's completely reasonable and I encourage others to understand and perhaps accept a Realist[0] worldview, where obviously major powers are engaged in security competition. I observe this too often, and it saddens me, that "western" people might truly believe in things like this. My country and region was actively interfered, militarily and politically, by the US. We never were approached for deals as respectful partners, always a condescending and agenda driven deal with strings attached. Chinese relations with my country, and economic opportunities, flourish and give me hope that it might kickstart improvements I've lingered for since my teens (infrastructure, particularly rail for me). Don't get me wrong, I am extremely suspicious of China politics and its goals. And of course this is part of its soft power ambitions, believe me that us "non-westerns" are perhaps not as dumb as we might seem (perhaps as problematic in other areas though). Unless US, EU, Israel, or whatever considered to be "western" do not paranoia themselves and believe their own propaganda that China should be nuked you should indeed learn Mandarin, reason a little bit different than perhaps you assumed for on this statement: they treat others with; even if some underlying goal might exist; actual respect. Look at yourselves in the mirror. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relatio...
- randerson 1y agoComing soon to status.golden-dome.mil: "Our AI provider is having an outage and we are unable to identify which flying objects look like enemies."
- flufluflufluffy 1y ago“we have to and are proud to and really want to make weapons with AI.” There, I fixed it
- dbg31415 1y agoFrom my past experience with US government work that translates into about $199 million worth of meetings and $1 million worth of actual work.
- sarpdag 1y agoA journey from nonprofit to military contract.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago"wins" as if it were any contest
- wackget 1y agoAnyone else angered by the fact that these military companies have named themselves using words from Tolkien's works? Andruil, Palantir... it makes a mockery of the things that Tolkien stood for and I hate it.
- absurdo 1y ago[flagged]
- ge96 1y agoAfter seeing that demo of the drone bursting over a pick up truck, I wonder the developers high five each other like "f yeah!" edit: to be clear I'm not anti-gun, and I understand needing to protect, USA is probably what it is because of things like the 7th fleet so I can enjoy my life. idk moral highground too, can always counter that like "do you donate all of your spare money to needy people" the challenges involved are interesting, recently was watching a video on crosspol jamming for example somebody has to do it
- tim333 1y agoWhich things does it mock? Tolkien served in WW1 and trained to be a code breaker in WW2. I feel he may have seen value in military technology.
- xxr 1y agoThese are all Peter Thiel joints, I think.
- MPSFounder 1y agoI was discussing Singapore recently. I asked a friend of mine with a PhD on the subject what made it so special (is it the port?). He mentioned if he had to pinpoint one reason, Singapore is a first-world nation in that region of the world because of the rule of law. Corruption was dealt with swiftly and harshly. Looking at contracts given to Elon (Teslas selling on front lawns, SpaceX contracts in the billions funded by our taxes), Sam Altman (who gave the current admin 1 million at inauguration and has reaped many folds), and Tim Cook (for a brief time, Apple being exempted of tarrifs), my heart quickly hurts. The comments are making light of the situation and joking on Defense software, while ignoring the magnitude of this. When favors are gained via bribes, America becomes the very concept we all despised: corruption and favors dictating our governance à la Soviet Union. We saw the Kushners lead talks on the Middle East, we saw inept billionaires leading the department of education (WWE's Linda McMahon), we saw the Adelsons drag us into a war on behalf of Israel, and yet there is something that is particularly funny here. I think I might be missing the joke... My age might be showing, but these headlines are precedents that are undermining the fabric of America. Perhaps we deserve it, since the only response is light hearted jokes, holding paddle signs at union addresses, and protests where Instagram photos and poses, wearing silly hats and holding signs with aphorisms, occur alongside military parades. The circus writes itself, and history books will judge us harshly on this one.
- beefnugs 1y agoDoes anyone know if palantir has its own ai model? uses some online models? Old school artisan hand crafted only? What do big govs do when they get two completely different incompatible interfaces overlapping on similar features? Besides the security of one failing allowing the hacking of the latter of course