Pentagon says US military to be an 'AI-first' fighting force

the pentagon signed eight new ai contracts with google, openai, amazon, microsoft, spacex, oracle, nvidia, and startup reflection. the deals cover any "lawful operational use" of ai by the military. the pentagon said this makes the us military an "ai-first fighting force." anthropic is notably absent. ceo dario amodei went public with fears the pentagon could use its tools for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. a legal challenge from anthropic goes to court in september. openai was the first to sign a new deal after that row. over a million defense department staff have used the military's ai platform since last year, cutting task times "from months to days." google's gemini will handle classified government work for the first time. hundreds of google employees, including deepmind staff, urged ceo sundar pichai not to deepen government ties.