
If you're still trying to wrap your head around the saga between OpenAI, Anthropic, and the Department of Defense, you're not alone. OpenAI's move to strike a deal with the Pentagon, and its no-so-easy-to-follow justification for doing so, which Fortune's Sharon Goldman
scooped on Friday afternoon, was part of an extraordinary sequence of events.
To judge by OpenAI CEO
Sam Altman's decision to hold an AMA with the public about it on Saturday, it seems that many people are still confused—and a little uneasy—about the deal OpenAI made, how it differs from Anthropic's ill-fated deal, and about the implications of the DoD tactics.
Speaking of the DoD tactics, Fortune's Lily Mae Lazarus has a nice
look at Emil Michael, the former (and controversial) Uber executive who posted a now infamous tweet calling Anthropic's CEO a liar with a 'God complex.'
And in another interesting twist, the
Wall Street Journal reports that Anthropic's Claude was used by the U.S. DoD in the Iran attack that began just hours after the government declared it would stop using its AI technology.
This story is developing, as they say, but Fortune AI Editor Jeremy Kahn has
a good overview of what makes it so important and unprecedented.—
AO