Michael: Inherited Pentagon AI contracts created dangerous vendor lock-in
Emil Michael · Emil Michael: The Department of War Is Moving Faster Than Silicon Valley on AI | The a16z Show · Mar 13, 2026 · at 9:58
Emil Michael, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, details terms of service in commercial AI contracts inherited from the previous US administration.
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“Well, they came up now because as I started to look at the contracts that had been written during the last administration for the use of AI. I had a whole, holy cow moment because there were things not well beyond what you've been hearing in the press in the last couple of weeks, things like you couldn't move a satellite, you couldn't plan, you know, ah, an operation, couldn't plan it, not use AI to execute it if it would potentially lead to a kinetic strike or something, dozens of restrictions. And yet this, these AI sort of models were baked into some of the most sensitive and important places In the US military, where we do exercise combat power, central command now that's sort of, ah, air of responsibilities, Iran, or in, you know, Indo-PACOM is air of responsibilities, China, or Southcom, which is Venezuela and South America were all using this model and there was no two vendors. It was a vendor lock situation with terms that in theory, if the model was designed to turn off when you violated the terms could just stop in the middle of an operation and put lives at risk.”
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