Sam Altman: Amend the cooperation agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to specify that AI must not be used for monitoring American citizens

On March 3rd, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reposted an internal memo stating, “We have been working with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to supplement our agreement to clarify our principles. We will amend the agreement to include the following clause as an addition to the existing terms: ‘In accordance with applicable laws, including the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the National Security Act of 1947, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, AI systems shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens and nationals. To avoid ambiguity, the Department of Defense understands that this restriction prohibits intentional tracking, monitoring, or surveillance of U.S. citizens or nationals, including through the procurement or use of personally identifiable information obtained commercially.’ Protecting the civil liberties of American citizens is crucial. Given the high level of public concern, we want to explicitly clarify this point, including information obtained through commercial means. As with our iterative deployment approach, we will continue to learn and optimize. I believe this is an important modification, and the Department of Defense has also confirmed that our services will not be used by intelligence agencies such as the NSA. To be extremely clear, we hope to conduct work through democratic processes. Currently, the technology is not mature in many aspects, and we are still unclear about the safety trade-offs in many areas. During weekend discussions, I reiterated that Anthropic should not be designated as SCR, and I hope the Department of Defense will grant them the same terms as our agreement.”