Concerns about military use of AI arose during Israel\u2019s war against terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon, with US tech giants quietly empowering Israel to track targets. But the number of civilians killed also soared, fueling fears that these tools contributed to the deaths of innocent people.<\/p>\n
\t Questions about military use of AI still being worked out<\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s latest contracts come at a time of anxiety about the potential for over-reliance on the technology on the battlefield, said Helen Toner, interim executive director at Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of modern warfare is based on people sitting in command centers behind monitors, making complicated decisions about confusing, fast-moving situations,\u201d said Toner, a former board member of OpenAI. \u201cAI systems can be helpful in terms of summarizing information or looking at surveillance feeds and trying to identify potential targets.\u201d<\/p>\n But questions about the appropriate levels of human involvement, risk, and training are still being worked out, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you roll out these tools rapidly for them to be effective and provide strategic advantage?\u201d Toner asked, \u201cWhile also recognizing that you need to train the operators and make sure they know how to use them and don\u2019t over-trust them?\u201d<\/p>\n Such concerns were raised by Anthropic. The tech company said it wanted assurances in its contract that the military would not use its technology in fully autonomous weapons and the surveillance of Americans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the company must allow for any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.<\/p>\n Anthropic sued after President Donald Trump, a Republican, tried to stop all federal agencies from using the company\u2019s chatbot Claude, and Hegseth sought to label the company a supply chain risk, a designation meant to protect against sabotage of national security systems by foreign adversaries.<\/p>\n OpenAI had announced a deal with the Pentagon in March to effectively replace Anthropic with ChatGPT in classified environments. OpenAI confirmed in a statement Friday that it was the same agreement it announced in early March.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we said when we first announced our agreement several months ago, we believe the people defending the United States should have the best tools in the world,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n \t One company\u2019s agreement with the Pentagon included language that said there should be human oversight over any missions in which the AI systems act autonomously or semiautonomously, according to a person familiar with the agreement who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. The language also said the AI tools must be used in ways that are consistent with constitutional rights and civil liberties.<\/p>\n Those resemble sticking points for Anthropic, though OpenAI has previously said that it secured similar assurances when it made its own deal with the Pentagon.<\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s point of view<\/p>\n Emil Michael, the Pentagon\u2019s chief technology officer, told CNBC on Friday that it would have been irresponsible to rely on only one company, an acknowledgment of the friction with Anthropic.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when we learned that one partner didn\u2019t really want to work with us in the way we wanted to work with them, we went out and made sure that we had multiple different providers,\u201d Michael said.<\/p>\n Some of the companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, have long worked with the military in classified environments, and it was not immediately clear if the new agreements significantly altered their government partnerships. Others, such as chipmaker Nvidia and the startup Reflection, are new to such work. Both companies make open-source AI models, which Michael has described as a priority to provide an \u201cAmerican alternative\u201d to China\u2019s rapid development of AI systems in which some key components are publicly accessible for others to build upon.<\/p>\n The Pentagon said Friday that military personnel are already using its AI capabilities through its official platform, GenAI.mil.<\/p>\n \u201cWarfighters, civilians and contractors are putting these capabilities to practical use right now, cutting many tasks from months to days,\u201d the Pentagon said, adding that the military\u2019s growing AI capabilities will \u201cgive warfighters the tools they need to act with confidence and safeguard the nation against any threat.\u201d<\/p>\n In many cases, the military uses artificial intelligence the same way civilians do: to take on rote tasks that would take humans hours or days to complete, said Toner, of Georgetown University.<\/p>\n \t AI can be used to better predict when a helicopter needs maintenance or figure out how to efficiently move large amounts of troops and gear, she said. It can also help determine whether vehicles on a drone\u2019s surveillance feeds are civilian or military.<\/p>\n But people shouldn\u2019t become overly dependent on it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a phenomenon called automation bias, where people can be prone to assume that machines work better than they actually do,\u201d Toner said.<\/p>\n Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tPages from the Anthropic website and the company\u2019s logo are displayed on a computer screen in New York on February 26, 2026. (AP Photo\/Patrick Sison)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26120556871510-e1777684859194-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tUS Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo\/Cliff Owen)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26114616999079-e1777684819769-640x400.jpg\")
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