(New York) The Artificial Intelligence Start-up (AI) XAI has passed a contract with the US Defense Ministry (DOD) to provide it with its generative AI assistant, the subject of several controversies in recent days.
After this XAI announcement on XAI, the Ministry of Defense said it was also heard with major competitors Openai, Anthropic and Google to “accelerate” in AI and respond “to crucial national security challenges”, according to a statement.
Each of the four contracts provides a ceiling of $ 200 million.
The DOD intends to “transform”, thanks to artificial intelligence, “its abilities of support for combatants” and “preserve a strategic advantage over (its) adversaries”.
In the case of XAI, the partnership is part of the launch of an offer dedicated to government and public institutions, called Grok for Government.
Put online at the end of 2023, Grok regularly talks about him for his slippages.
After an update, on July 7, the chatbot, in some of its answers, praised Adolf Hitler, denounced “anti-white stereotypes” on X or the “disproportionate” representation of the Jews in Hollywood.
XAI apologized on Saturday for these extremist and insulting messages, announcing that it has corrected the instructions which had led, according to the company, to these road trips.
In addition, an AFP journalist noted, like other publications, that the new version of the Chatbot, Grok 4, presented on Wednesday, consulted in several cases the positions of Elon Musk on the subject discussed before responding.
The contract between XAI and the Ministry of Defense intervenes against the backdrop of blurring between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
The two men got closer during the last presidential campaign and the republican billionaire had entrusted, after his inauguration, to Elon Musk the management of a special commission dedicated to the identification of sources of economics within the administration.
After putting an end to his mission, in May, the contractor of South African origin publicly criticized the great budgetary bill of Donald Trump because he should widen public debt.
The president and the businessman engaged in a very lively exchange on social networks and by public declarations, before Elon Musk apologizes for some of his messages.
The government and the defense sector are considered a possible growth engine for AI giants.
Meta has teamed up with the start-up Andundil to develop virtual reality headsets for soldiers and police, while Openai won, in mid-June, a first AI service contract for the American army.
