AI HOT (Curated Pool)Sep 9, 2026, 16:00 UTC+8

Pentagon asked OpenAI for a military AI with 'minimum refusal rate,' per The Intercept

《The Intercept》披露美国国防部曾要求 OpenAI 提供对军事指令最低拒绝率的特别版 AI

A contract obtained by The Intercept shows the Pentagon asked OpenAI for a custom model with a 'minimum refusal rate' on military commands, under a deal worth up to $200 million. OpenAI and the DoD both claim the final signed version dropped that language, but the Pentagon's own lawyer first confirmed the document as final, then walked it back. Ex-OpenAI safety engineer Heidy Khlaaf says minimum refusal rate effectively means no safety guardrails.

Why it matters: The Intercept obtained a contract document exposing a 'minimum refusal rate' clause, with a $200M ceiling and a Pentagon lawyer's contradictory statements giving this both exclusive evidence and drama. On-record criticism from an ex-OpenAI safety engineer adds source weight. N...

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The reason to click: 'minimum refusal rate' is about as blunt as it gets. Ex-OpenAI safety engineer Heidy Khlaaf says it effectively means no safety guardrails. The deal is worth up to $200 million over two years, an extension of last summer's AI military prototype agreement.

Both OpenAI and the Pentagon now claim the final signed version dropped that language. OpenAI says they rejected the term and the DoD agreed to remove it. But none of the documents obtained by The Intercept are marked 'draft,' and the Pentagon's own lawyer first confirmed the file as final, then walked it back hours later. The official handling this, Trevor Tiedeman, admitted he's not sure what version the document actually is.

I'd discount this a bit: we're only seeing contract fragments, and neither side has released the full agreement. We can't tell if 'minimum refusal rate' was truly removed or just rephrased. But the useful bit isn't the wording itself—it's that the Pentagon asked for it at all. Whether or not it made the final cut, the direction of the ask is clear.

The Anthropic contrast is the other thing to watch. Earlier this year, Anthropic refused to drop restrictions on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance from its military contract, and the Trump administration labeled them a 'supply chain risk'—a designation a federal judge overturned just last month. OpenAI signed its latest version on February 27, moving noticeably faster. The gap between these two companies on military red lines tells you more than any single contract clause.

Source: AI HOT (Curated Pool) · ithome.com
Published: Sep 9, 2026, 16:00 UTC+8 · 21 days ago