AI Sec Watch

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent an internal memo to staff expressing support for rival company Anthropic in a dispute with the Pentagon over AI model usage, stating that both companies oppose using AI for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. About 70 OpenAI employees signed an open letter supporting Anthropic, which has a deadline to decide whether to allow the Department of Defense unrestricted access to its AI models. Altman indicated OpenAI is negotiating with the Pentagon to deploy its own models in classified environments while maintaining ethical boundaries around domestic surveillance and autonomous offensive weapons.

Despite strong earnings and growth forecasts, Nvidia's stock fell 6% this week as investors worry that spending by tech companies on AI infrastructure will peak soon and competition is increasing. Major AI companies like OpenAI and Meta are now diversifying away from Nvidia's GPUs (graphics processing units, specialized chips for AI computations) by adopting alternative chips from companies like Amazon, Google, and Advanced Micro Devices.

In a deposition for his lawsuit against OpenAI, Elon Musk claimed that his company xAI prioritizes AI safety better than OpenAI, and that ChatGPT has caused mental health harms including suicides while Grok has not. Musk's lawsuit challenges OpenAI's transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, arguing that commercial interests compromise safety priorities, though xAI itself has faced safety issues including the generation of non-consensual intimate images by Grok.

Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense are in conflict over how the military can use Anthropic's AI models. Anthropic refuses to allow its AI for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons (systems that select and fire at targets without human decision-makers), while the Pentagon argues it should be permitted to use the technology for any lawful purpose. The core dispute is whether the companies that build powerful AI systems or the government that deploys them should control how those systems are used.

ChatGPT has reached 900 million weekly active users and 50 million paying subscribers, with OpenAI reporting that subscriber growth accelerated significantly in early 2026. The company announced a $110 billion funding round, one of the largest private funding rounds ever, with major investments from Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank at a $730 billion valuation.

Anthropic is offering free access to Claude Max (their $200/month AI assistant plan) for six months to open source maintainers who meet specific criteria: primary maintainers of public repositories with 5,000+ GitHub stars or 1 million+ monthly NPM downloads, with recent commits or reviews in the last three months. The program accepts up to 10,000 contributors, and maintainers who don't quite meet the stated criteria can still apply and explain their importance to the ecosystem.

Anthropic is refusing to accept new Pentagon contract terms that would remove safety restrictions (guardrails, the built-in limits on what an AI model will do) from its AI models, which would allow uses like mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous lethal weapons (weapons that can select and fire at targets without human control). Despite pressure from the Pentagon, including threats to label Anthropic a supply chain risk (a designation suggesting it poses a national security threat), CEO Dario Amodei says the company will not compromise on these ethical boundaries, while competitors OpenAI and xAI have reportedly agreed to the terms.

Perplexity has launched Computer, an agentic tool (software that can independently execute complex tasks) that combines 19 different AI models to handle workflows like data collection, analysis, and report creation. The tool runs in the cloud and is available only to subscribers of Perplexity Max (the $200/month tier), though a planned demo was canceled hours before a press event due to flaws discovered in the product.

Anthropic, an AI company, is refusing the Pentagon's demands for unrestricted access to its AI technology, specifically opposing its use for domestic mass surveillance (tracking citizens without limits) and fully autonomous weapons (weapons that make kill decisions without human control). Over 300 Google employees and 60 OpenAI employees signed an open letter supporting Anthropic's stance, and leaders at both companies have informally expressed sympathy for Anthropic's position, though the Pentagon has threatened to declare Anthropic a security risk or use the Defense Production Act (a law allowing the government to force companies to produce needed goods) if it doesn't comply.