Pentagon issues guidance on AI procurements to support Trump’s ‘truth-seeking’ and ‘ideological neutrality’ directives

The Pentagon issued new guidance this week focused on implementing the Trump administration’s so-called “truth-seeking” and “ideological neutrality” principles in AI procurements.

A memorandum dated Oct. 20 from Principal Director for Defense Pricing, Contracting, and Acquisition Policy John Tenaglia noted that the initiative is “in direct support” of a previous executive order from President Donald Trump on “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government” and a White House Office of Management and Budget memo on “Increasing Public Trust in Artificial Intelligence Through Unbiased AI Principles.”

Trump’s EO, issued last year, laid out the administration’s “truth-seeking” and “ideological neutrality” edicts for AI procurements, stating that large language models purchased by federal agencies “shall be truthful in responding to user prompts seeking factual information or analysis” and “prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity, and shall acknowledge uncertainty where reliable information is incomplete or contradictory.”

The models must be “neutral, nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas such as DEI,” Trump wrote, adding that developers “shall not intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments into an LLM’s outputs unless those judgments are prompted by or otherwise readily accessible to the end user.”

Tenaglia noted in his memo that compliance with the White House directives is mandatory.

The new Pentagon guidance includes three attachments for personnel involved in acquisitions of artificial intelligence technologies.

The issuance “provides contracting and program personnel with adaptable templates and standardized language to document, solicit, and enforce these Unbiased AI Principles in our procurements. It is designed to be flexible, allowing DoW Components to tailor the language to fit the specific context and risk level of their individual AI acquisitions,” Tenaglia wrote in his memo to acquisition leaders at the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Transportation Command, DOD agencies and field activities. (The term “DoW” refers to the Department of War, which is the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Department of Defense.)

The templates include a memorandum for the requiring activity to select the appropriate transparency requirements for the procurement; standardized solicitation language that instructs vendors on the specific documentation they must provide to demonstrate compliance; and formal contract language that could be included in the Statement of Work or Performance Work Statement in solicitations and final contracts.

When buying an LLM, the Pentagon must obtain sufficient information from the contractor to determine whether its tech complies with the principles in Trump’s EO, according to an attachment to Tenaglia’s memo. “The amount and type of information available will vary depending on the contractor’s role within the software supply chain and its relationship with the LLM developer itself, with more information generally being available from sources closer to the original LLM developer,” the document noted.

The memo suggests that contracting language should define key terms, clearly communicate submission requirements to potential vendors and make the provision of related documentation a formal part of the proposal process.