David L. Shrier, Professor at Imperial College Business School, joins Remy Blaire to discuss the significant developments in the intersection of artificial intelligence and national security. The pair break down OpenAI’s recent $200 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense to create advanced AI tools for military operations and cybersecurity. Despite Meta’s aggressive $100 million bonus offer to OpenAI employees, CEO Sam Altman reports that top talent is staying with OpenAI.
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OpenAI, the maker of Chad GPT, signed a $200 million deal with the US Department of Defense to build advanced AI tools for military operations and cybersecurity.
Separately, Mehta offered $100 million in bonuses to OpenAI employees, but OpenAI's top talent is reportedly staying put.
That is according to CEO Sam Altman.
Meadow's matching offers and invested $14 billion to bring on.
AI experts pushing to lead in super intelligence.
Now this does come as OpenAI phasing out its work with scale AI after Meta's multibillion dollar deal with the startup.
Well, joining us to break all of this down is David L.
Shire, futurist, author and professor of practice at the Imperial College Business School in London.
Good morning, David.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Well, US markets have just opened, and here in the US as well.
Around the world, the Middle East conflict is front and center, especially after the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites this weekend.
Now recently, top executives from Palantirer met up in AIN thinking machines have been sworn into the US Army Reserve as lieutenant colonels, and it is part of a broader effort by the US Army to tap private sector innovation.
So what is your role on big tech's growing role when it comes to national security?
Well, thank you, Remy, by the way, it's good to be here again.
Um, big tech is now also big defense.
So if you look at the swearing in of the senior executives as commissioned officers, um, it's only a reflection of the close ties between Silicon Valley and the Beltway.
So Pallanter, for example, got a major contract to create a massive database, merging all sorts of different data about Americans in the name of national security and government efficiency, a digital panopticon.
While this may be scary for personal privacy, it's been huge for talent here and their stock has been on a tear.
Open AI likewise has been reaching deep into the uh government in order to align with government policies as they try to apply their technologies towards national security.
And David, when it comes to national security here in the US, we're concerned about physical security, but also cyberattacks as well.
So I want to get your take when it comes to artificial intelligence.
How important is data provider neutrality for AI companies that are developing these competitive models?
Well, it's critically important because you can think of data as the fuel that makes the AI engine go.
And so a well known vector of attack on the AI model is to poison the data that goes into the model.
So having access to data and having access to data that has not been disrupted is vitally important to having the very best AI models.
And I do want to get your take on Yes, David, I do want to get your take on uh.
Yeah, Mehta, so when it comes to this company, do you think Meta could gain a competitive edge by having close ties to scale AI despite insurances when it comes to no preferential treatment?
Yeah, meta has really struggled with their own internal AI development efforts, um, and so they're beefing that up with a massive new push.
So the $14 billion that they invested into scale AI in with a number of strings, including co-founder of Scale AI, Alexander Wang joining Meta, um, you could look at it as a very expensive aquiferer.
It's also notable that um men danced with perplexity AI and were unsuccessful in getting them to cut a deal prior to the uh investment of the scale.
And David, what alternative data sources or strategies might OpenAI pursue to maintain its lead when it comes to AI development?
Well, one of the big opportunities, and this is part of what all of these AI companies are salivating about is what's known as dark data.
So the US government as an example, has a raft of data that is not publicly available.
It's found, for example, inside of military systems like sonar data and signals intelligence data in the NSA.
So companies like OpenAI like Talent here are hoping that by aligning with US government contracts, they can get access to reams and reams of new data that's not publicly available, that they can then program into their models.
And finally, David, we can't have a conversation about artificial intelligence without mentioning Nvidia.
So the company's CEO Jenson Huang thinks it is a Goldilocks moment for artificial intelligence.
What is your take?
I couldn't agree more.
So what he's referring to is the rise of something known as sovereign AI.
The US government is not the only government that is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI systems.
We are seeing across the world, from the United Kingdom to Malaysia, massive government programs going into AI, and Nvidia right now stands to be one of the largest beneficiaries.
The opportunity is so big that Sam Altman at OpenAI is trying to raise $7 trillion of capital in order to build semiconductor fab plants to compete with Nvidia, but right now the game is Jensen Wang's and Nvidias.
OK, David, well, we will have to leave it there but thank you so much for joining us on this Monday morning and as always, thank you for sharing your insights.
Always a pleasure.