In June, Sarah Yager took an unusual role at OpenAI, becoming the company’s first human rights and responsible deployment lead. She’s focused on military applications, given her 30 years of experience in this area and OpenAI’s partnership with the Department of War (DoW). Yager spoke about her role on stage Tuesday at the ScaleUp:AI conference in New York City, where she mentioned her concerns with military institutions adopting AI, particularly in armed conflict. “Everyone is very worried and rightly so,” Yager said. “This keeps me up at night: ‘What is the military going to do with AI when it comes to targeting? And what about autonomous weapons? And where is all of this going?’” OpenAI approached Yager for the job shortly after the company signed a contract with the DoW in late February to deploy advanced AI systems in classified environments, a high-profile deal that followed a public falling out between the DoW and Anthropic. Since joining, she’s had some success influencing the direction of the technology, and also some concerns about where it’s going. The use of AI in military applications has proved tricky, with the U.S. military nearly targeting a Chinese military ship based on an inaccurate, AI-generated intelligence report, CNN reported last month. Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/06/openai-human-rights-lead-sarah-yager-military-ai-use-concerns/ submitted by /u/fortune
Originally posted by u/fortune on r/ArtificialInteligence