"ChatGPT uninstalls skyrocket 295% following DOD deal" 04/03/26

Following OpenAI’s deal with the US Department of Defense (DOD), consumers have uninstalled the company’s ChatGPT generative chatbot en masse, with the uninstall rate increasing by 295 per cent.

The company’s usual day-over-day uninstall rate was 9 per cent, but now sits at 295 per cent. Additionally, its US downloads dropped 13 per cent day-over-day.

...

rival AI firm Anthropic, which was originally set to do the deal with the Pentagon, has benefited

...

Anthropic decided against partnering with the US DOD due to concerns that its AI would be used in fully autonomous weaponry, which the technology is not yet capable of doing safely, and for the surveillance of Americans.

...

In response to the decline, OpenAI has gone into damage control and clarified that it would not allow its technology to be used to spy on the American people.

...

“Throughout our discussions, the department made clear it shares our commitment to ensuring our tools will not be used for domestic surveillance. To make our principles as clear as possible, we worked together to add additional language to our agreement,” the company said.

...

“Other AI labs have reduced or removed their safety guardrails and relied primarily on usage policies as their primary safeguards in national security deployments. We think our approach better protects against unacceptable use,” it said.

This does beg the question, however, as to what the DOD preferred with OpenAI’s apparently more restrictive deal compared to Anthropic’s.