People Are Boycotting ChatGPT Over OpenAI's Recent Deal With the Pentagon

Although it's got plenty of competitors now, OpenAI's ChatGPT was the first tool that gave us an inkling of how powerful AI chatbots could be. Most recently, though, OpenAI was in the news because the company has allowed the U.S. government to use its tool in ways that one of its competitors, Anthropic, has not.

Following the news of OpenAI's partnership with Anthropic, some people have started boycotting ChatGPT, arguing that giving the government access to the tool could lead to wide-scale surveillance. Here's what we know.

The "QuitGPT" movement was born following OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's announcement that the company would be partnering with the Pentagon, and after Anthropic, one of OpenAI's competitors, refused to do the same.

"In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome," Altman wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).

"AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission," he continued. "Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement."

Altman's announcement faced major backlash as, almost immediately, people who looked at the deal the company struck began to notice that OpenAI's terms allowed the Department of Defense to self-regulate its own safety. Essentially, OpenAI is trusting the Trump administration's word.

Anthropic, which refused to accede to those same terms, is now having all of its contracts with the federal government closed.

The QuitGPT movement is not opposed to AI chatbots in general, but it has argued that ChatGPT, in particular, should be boycotted.

"On Feb. 27, ChatGPT competitor Anthropic refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI for mass surveillance of Americans or producing AI weapons that kill without human oversight," the movement's website explains.

"Within hours, ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman swooped in and accepted the Pentagon's corrupt deal, putting us all at risk of lethal AI for the sake of his company's profits. OpenAI agreed to let the Pentagon use its tech for "any lawful purpose," including killer robots and mass surveillance," the statement continued. The statement goes on to explain that OpenAI and its senior leadership have also donated to Trump and Trump-aligned causes.

Essentially, then, they are trying to deprive ChatGPT of its user base for cozying up to the Trump administration. While we don't know how well that will work, this is not the first politically motivated boycott to take off during the Trump era. ChatGPT is still a powerful tool, and plenty of people are going to continue using it. Losing part of its user base is definitely going to hurt, but OpenAI has been barreling forward anyway, and it might not be stopped.