The Pentagon has opened the navy AI floodgates and handed out contracts value as much as $800 million to 4 of the most important names: Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s xAI. Every firm will get a shot at $200 million value of labor.
Dr Doug Matty, Chief Digital and AI Officer, stated: “The adoption of AI is reworking the Division’s skill to assist our warfighters and keep strategic benefit over our adversaries.
“Leveraging commercially accessible options into an built-in capabilities strategy will speed up using superior AI as a part of our joint mission important duties in our warfighting area in addition to intelligence, enterprise, and enterprise info programs.”
The Pentagon is enjoying it sensible by not placing all their eggs in a single basket. As an alternative of choosing a single winner, they’re creating competitors among the many high gamers within the hope of making certain the most effective AI options accessible for the navy and broader authorities.
Simply as this announcement dropped, Musk’s xAI rolled out ‘Grok For Authorities,’ a particular model of their AI designed particularly to be used by public businesses. This follows related authorities initiatives from OpenAI and Anthropic.
The brand new authorities suite from xAI guarantees every thing from their newest Grok 4 mannequin to ‘Deep Search’ and ‘Instrument Use.’ They’re even planning to get safety clearances for his or her engineers and make their AI work in labeled environments.
The corporate is clearly attempting to place itself because the patriotic alternative, speaking about “sustaining American management in technological innovation” and “turning shovels into tokens”—no matter which means.
Nevertheless, keep in mind when Grok went utterly off the rails and began speaking about “Mechahitler”? That’s precisely the form of factor that makes folks nervous about utilizing AI for critical authorities work and even navy functions.
Once you’re coping with nationwide safety, you’ll be able to’t have your AI assistant out of the blue spouting weird alternate histories or making stuff up. The stakes are simply too excessive. It’s like hiring somebody to assist with necessary choices, however generally they simply begin speaking nonsense.
This complete deal reveals simply how severely the federal government is taking AI—they see it as important for staying aggressive. The partnership with the Basic Providers Administration means any federal company can now faucet into these AI instruments, making it simpler for everybody from the FBI to the Division of Agriculture to get on board.
The Pentagon is basically operating a high-stakes experiment. They’re betting that by working with a number of AI firms, they’ll get the most effective of all worlds whereas avoiding the dangers of counting on only one supplier. It’s a wise technique, however it additionally means they’ll want to determine the way to handle all these completely different programs and ensure they really work collectively.
The true take a look at might be whether or not these AI instruments can ship on their guarantees within the authorities and navy with out the embarrassing glitches which have plagued a few of these programs prior to now. As a result of with regards to nationwide safety, there’s no room for AI having a “Mechahitler” second.
See additionally: Google’s open MedGemma AI models could transform healthcare
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