US senator calls for AI competition in Pentagon contracting

May 28 (Reuters) – Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren urged the U.S. Department of Defense to ensure competitive AI contracting, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday, as tech billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok gains ground in the federal government.
Warren’s letter comes on the heels of Reuters reporting last week that Musk’s DOGE team is expanding the use of Grok to analyze data, potentially violating conflict-of-interest laws and putting at risk sensitive information on millions of Americans.

“I seek to ensure that the DoD’s procurement decisions encourage competition and avoid consolidation that can lead to higher prices, concentration of risk, and the stifling of innovation,” Warren, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in the letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday.
Warren’s office asked the Pentagon to respond to her by June 11, instead of her original date of June 9, on its AI acquisition practices, how it plans to avoid getting locked in with a particular contractor, and its safeguards for data collection.
“How does DoD plan to ensure government data is not used to illegally train commercially available AI algorithms?” Warren wrote.

Source:reuters.com