The Pentagon Asked OpenAI for Artificial Intelligence Designed to Rarely Say No

The Department of Defense asked OpenAI to provide the U.S. military with a special version of its artificial intelligence technology designed to turn down the Pentagon’s requests as infrequently as possible, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

The desire for a custom AI tool with “minimal refusal rates” to Pentagon commands was revealed in files released to The Intercept as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information about the military’s secretive deals with AI companies.

OpenAI, along with rivals Google, xAI, and Anthropic, all agreed in 2025 to develop militarized prototypes of their state-of-the-art AI to assist the armed forces in uses including logistics, intelligence decision-making, and general “warfighting.” Earlier this year, the Pentagon sought to expand the scope of these agreements and deploy them across U.S. classified computer networks, resulting in a high-profile showdown with Anthropic over whether and how the company could restrain military uses of its technology.

The clause seeking “minimal refusal rates” from OpenAI appears in an updated contract — version “P00003” — expanding upon last summer’s prototype deal, worth up to $200 million over the contract’s two-year duration. A separate document, signed by both OpenAI and the government on February 6, indicates that OpenAI agreed on that day to the contents of an expanded version “P00003.”