OpenAI Is Getting Into the Business of War
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Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, December 5th. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. Have you ever had a weather app swear it wasn't raining in the middle of a downpour? We'll find out why you can't always trust your weather app and ways to get better predictions. And then, for years, many U.S. tech companies kept the defense industry at arm's length. Now, one of the biggest names in artificial intelligence development, OpenAI, is getting into the business of war.

The chat GPT maker has struck a deal with defense startup Anduril. Our reporter Deepa Sitharaman explains how this is the latest example of Silicon Valley's efforts to forge deeper ties with the Pentagon. But first, weather apps are a convenient way to get a glimpse at the day's forecast so you know what to wear.

But they can be fickle and aren't always accurate. Our personal tech columnist, Nicole Nguyen, dug into why this happens and how to get better weather predictions. She joins us now. Nicole, why aren't weather apps always accurate? Weather apps use data from these publicly available models. And these models spit out weather.

bunch of numbers, and it's up to our weather apps to simplify those numbers and turn it into an icon, say partly cloudy, rainy, etc. It doesn't have much nuance. So it's making its best guess. And when that guess is wrong, you are stuck in the rain, unfortunately. How has weather forecasting tech changed in recent years? The underlying models are these

very complicated mathematical models that require supercomputers all around the world to crunch the numbers. And it's so intensive that some only crunch the numbers every six hours. And those computers themselves have become faster, more competent. And so they can run more types of mathematical equations for more grids across the planet faster. And that means that the accuracy has gone from

A good forecast looking ahead three days to a good forecast looking ahead over the next seven days. I talked to a meteorologist who worked in the 70s and he said the accuracy has gone up by a day per decade. Okay, so what are some ways then that people can get more accurate forecasts from their apps?

The trick is to look at many different apps, which is probably the answer people don't want, is to have to do more work when it comes to the weather. There is a tool called Forecast Advisor, which looks at forecast accuracy for your zip code or city or state.

So if you go to Forecast Advisor, boop in your zip code or city, look at your top three sources. This site, I will say, does not rank Apple Weather or Google Weather for technical reasons, but it's a good indication of which sites, which was surprising to me, are best for your location.

One for San Francisco, for example, is called Forca, which I was not familiar with. And it is mostly spot on. Another tip is to look at short-term data or real-term data. So instead of a seven-day forecast, just look at what's happening tomorrow or within the next three days. Real-time data is also very helpful. You can look at radar apps, which...

seem overwhelming at first because you're like, am I cosplaying a meteorologist? But once you dig into these radar apps, radar maps, it becomes self-evident. You know, where that cloud is moving is where rain will be. And you can see where the models think a storm is moving. And sometimes that's a little bit more information than just the icon in your weather app. That was personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen.

Coming up, until recently, OpenAI banned its technology from being used for military purposes. Now, it's signed a deal with defense startup Andoril. What changed? That's after the break. Say this is your financial life. Over time, things can get more complex. With a personalized plan...

Merrill can help you navigate it all. Learn more at ml.com slash bullish. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., register broker-dealer, register investment advisor, member SIPC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corp. OpenAI is getting into the business of war.

The developer behind the AI chatbot ChatGPT has announced a new deal with Anduril, a defense company that specializes in drones and anti-drone defense systems. It's a big, and potentially lucrative, change for the AI developer. And it could signal deeper ties between the tech industry and the U.S. Department of Defense. Our reporter Deepa Sitharaman has been covering this story. She joins us now.

And we should note before we get into it, News Corp, owner of the Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.

Deepa, what do we know about the deal between OpenAI and Anduril? At a high level, what we know is that OpenAI is allowing Anduril to use its technology in the company's defensive tools. So like counter drones and things like that. And very explicitly, the companies will not allow the OpenAI technology to be used in

in combat weapons, but that's kind of it. We don't know how much money is changing hands. We don't know where this technology might be deployed. We don't know all the ins and outs and in what manner it might be deployed. These are things that we've asked the company, but we're told that it was too sensitive to answer.

When you say using OpenAI's tech and Anduril's defensive tools, what exactly do you mean? So our understanding now is that OpenAI's AI technology, so these are models like

the one underlying chat GPT. They will start to incorporate that technology into the software that Anduril has built to maintain its counter drone systems. These are systems that detect and

assess and track drones. And if they spot a threatening drone, then what happens is the military or whoever the Anduril customers are can use electronic jamming, drones, and other means to take it down. And the idea here and the hope here is that these AI systems can improve the

the accuracy and speed at which Anduril systems can detect and respond to drones, and the idea being that that minimizes casualties among U.S. troops. So this is kind of a big shift because previously, OpenAI explicitly barred its technology from being used for military and warfare purposes. Why are they changing their stance now? Yeah, so this has been an ongoing process for the last year.

They had initially banned all kinds of military applications, including weapons. But then in January, there was a change in the company's usage policies.

that the line that previously said that military and warfare usage was not allowed, that that line had been removed. And the company subsequently confirmed that it was working with the Defense Department on a slew of different projects. They're exploring a lot of other partnerships with the Defense Department that

really are on the defensive side or analytical side of things. Where they've drawn a red line for now is we don't want these tools to be used to explicitly kill people. If it's defense or if it's just information gathering, they're increasingly comfortable with that.

And then you've really seen since the election in November, a big uptick in these types of announcements and deals across Silicon Valley. So it's not just OpenAI that's made a shift towards the Pentagon. It's the broader tech industry that's done the same.

And along those lines, now that OpenAI and Anduril have this agreement, could we see other companies follow? Yeah. And in fact, we're seeing other companies do these kinds of deals this year. One of the things that's really picked up over the last year is this discussion broadly in the AI industry about AI companies serving as a strategic asset for the United States and

And bolstering national security at a time when there is rising competition in AI between the U.S. and countries like China, right?

So the companies are trying to portray themselves as essential to the security backbone of the country. Besides OpenAI, we've seen its big partner, Microsoft, doing a lot of deals with the military. And then also Meta is now allowing the U.S. military to use its AI models. And Anthropic, which is another big AI startup that was founded by a number of OpenAI employees,

co-founders and senior executives, that company is also embracing the military and allowing its AI tools to be used through a partnership with Palantir. All these deals are such a striking contrast from 2018, which was not that long ago when there were internal protests within Google against Project Maven, which was a project that Google was embarking on with Apple.

the U.S. military. That kind of internal employee protest actually led Google to back away from those deals. But we've seen a re-engagement there too with Google. And so a few years ago, this is very difficult to imagine.

And over the last few years, there's been a real transition because it allows these companies to survive and thrive potentially. So if working on military technology becomes more common, what does this mean for the tech industry at large? The tech companies have often been seen as global players.

And the CEOs of these tech companies have often been positioned as global leaders. What is happening now is that these companies are increasingly portraying themselves as

That was our reporter Deepa Sitharaman.

And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Catherine Millsap. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening. You want a straightforward path to your goals, but at Merrill, we know things may get in the way.

Or if new opportunities can put you at a crossroads, with the bull at your back, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Go to ml.com slash bullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Incorporated. Registered broker-dealer. Registered investment advisor. Member SIPC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corp.