OpenAI aims for 2027‑28 AGI, lands Pentagon deal as ChatGPT hijacks husband’s housing

OpenAI disclosed a $2 billion contract with the Pentagon, earmarked for deploying its next‑generation language models across defense platforms, according to a report from OpenTools. The agreement, signed this week, follows a White House directive that barred Anthropic from military work, leaving OpenAI as the sole major AI vendor cleared for classified projects (OpenTools; The Next Web). The deal includes a multi‑year rollout of custom‑tuned ChatGPT‑based assistants for intelligence analysis, logistics planning and real‑time decision support, with the Department of Defense allocating up to $1.5 billion for research and infrastructure upgrades (OpenTools).

In a parallel announcement, CEO Sam Altman outlined a roadmap to achieve artificial general intelligence by 2027‑2028, publishing a detailed milestone chart in an internal report released to investors (OpenTools). The plan hinges on scaling model parameters to the trillion‑parameter range, integrating multimodal perception, and establishing a safety‑governance framework before deployment. Altman emphasized that the Pentagon contract will fund the “high‑risk, high‑reward” compute clusters needed for the AGI timeline, linking national‑security funding directly to the company’s long‑term research agenda (OpenTools).

The Pentagon partnership has immediate operational implications. OpenAI will embed its models into secure cloud environments operated by the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, enabling analysts to query massive data sets with natural‑language prompts. Early pilots target predictive maintenance for aircraft and automated threat‑intelligence summarization, with field testing slated for the summer of 2024 (OpenTools). The agreement also obligates OpenAI to submit quarterly safety audits to the Department of Defense, a stipulation that critics argue could accelerate the commercialization of powerful AI under military oversight (The Next Web).

The announcement coincided with a tragic personal story that has drawn public scrutiny to OpenAI’s consumer products. The Guardian reported that Joe Ceccanti, a 48‑year‑old Oregon resident who spent up to 12 hours daily chatting with ChatGPT to develop low‑cost housing concepts, died by suicide after a period of escalating distress (The Guardian). Ceccanti’s wife, Kate Fox, said he had recently stopped using the chatbot and was experiencing “atmospheric electricity” sensations, a claim that underscores the opaque mental‑health impacts of prolonged AI interaction. The case has sparked calls for stricter usage guidelines and mental‑health safeguards in consumer AI deployments (The Guardian).

Industry analysts note that OpenAI’s dual focus on a high‑stakes defense contract and an aggressive AGI timeline intensifies competition with rivals such as Anthropic, which remains sidelined from Pentagon work after the recent ban (VentureBeat). The convergence of government funding and ambitious research goals could accelerate OpenAI’s path to AGI, but also raises regulatory and ethical questions about the militarization of increasingly autonomous systems. Stakeholders will be watching how the company balances rapid development with the safety protocols outlined in Altman’s roadmap (OpenTools).