Google and OpenAI employees sign open letter in ‘solidarity’ with Anthropic

Source: Engadget

Overview

Hundreds of employees at Google and OpenAI have signed an open letter urging their companies to stand with Anthropic in its standoff with the Pentagon over military applications for AI tools like Claude. The letter, titled “We Will Not Be Divided,” calls on the leadership of both companies to “put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight.” These are lines that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said should not be crossed by his or any other AI company.

Signatures and Organization

• Over 450 signatures as of publication.
• Approximately 400 signatures are from Google employees; the remainder are from OpenAI employees.
• Roughly 50 % of participants have attached their names; the rest remain anonymous.
• All signatories are verified current employees of the respective companies.
• The original organizers of the letter are unaffiliated with any AI company, political party, or advocacy group.

Context

The open letter follows the ongoing dispute between Anthropic and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who threatened to label the company a “supply chain risk” if it did not withdraw certain guardrails for classified work. The Pentagon has also been in talks with Google and OpenAI about using their models for classified projects, with xAI joining the discussion earlier this week. The letter argues the government is “trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in.”

Company Responses

• OpenAI: CEO Sam Altman told his employees that OpenAI will draw the same red lines as Anthropic, according to an internal memo seen by Axios. In a CNBC interview, Altman said he doesn’t “personally think the Pentagon should be threatening DPA against these companies.”
• Google: No specific response from Google is noted in the source material.

Source

This article originally appeared on Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-and-openai-employees-sign-open-letter-in-solidarity-with-anthropic-194957274.html?src=rss