OpenAI and Google employees are warning their companies not to hand over AI to the Pentagon without safeguards.
A growing number of current and former staff at OpenAI and Google have signed a joint petition opposing the use of their companies’ AI tools for mass surveillance use and weapons that can kill without human oversight.
The online petition, titled “We Will Not Be Divided,” invites current and former employees from both companies to oppose what they see as dangerous directions for AI deployment. Signers must be verified and may choose to remain anonymous.
More than 220 employees from Google and OpenAI have signed the petition as of Friday — 176 from Google and 47 from OpenAI.
Google has about 187,000 employees globally as of mid-2025, while OpenAI’s head count runs into the thousands.
The petition said that the Department of War is threatening to invoke the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic to provide its AI model to the military and “tailor its model to the military’s needs,” potentially labeling the company a “supply chain risk” if it refuses.
“The Pentagon is negotiating with Google and OpenAI to try to get them to agree to what Anthropic has refused,” the petition added.
The petition comes after Axios reported on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had set a deadline for Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to provide the US military sweeping access to the company’s AI model, warning of potential consequences if it declined.
“The only reason we’re still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now,” a Defense official told Axios. “The problem for these guys is they are that good.”
During a January visit to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Hegseth described AI development as a “wartime arms race” and urged faster deployment of cutting-edge models for military use.
“We will not employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars,” Hegseth said.
Anthropic said in a blog post on Thursday that it would not allow its technology to be used to surveil Americans at scale or power weapons that act without human oversight.
“They’re trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in,” the petition said, referring to the Department of War.
“That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand. This letter serves to create shared understanding and solidarity in the face of this pressure from the Department of War,” it added.
“We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight.”
‘Absolutely in uncharted territory’
Experts told Business Insider in a report on Thursday that threatening to use emergency national security powers to pressure a private AI company marks a new and largely untested approach.
“We’re absolutely in uncharted territory,” Dean Ball, an ex-senior policy advisor for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and fellow for the Foundation for American Innovation, told Business Insider.
“What are the stakes for Anthropic? I mean, Anthropic could be quasi-nationalized, or they could be driven out of business,” Ball said. “The stakes are huge for them.”
Ball said the episode could send a broader signal across the tech industry that “doing business with the government is extremely dangerous.”
“It’s a huge risk,” he added.
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