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ChatGPT Uninstalls Surged By 295% After Pentagon Deal (techcrunch.com) 93

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
After OpenAI announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. uninstalls of ChatGPT surged 295% in a single day. Meanwhile, rival Anthropic "gained enough popularity to earn the number one spot on the App Store's Top Free Apps leaderboard," reports Engadget. TechCrunch reports: This data, which comes from market intelligence provider Sensor Tower, represents a sizable increase compared with ChatGPT's typical day-over-day uninstall rate of 9%, as measured over the past 30 days. [...] In addition, ChatGPT's download growth was impacted by the news of its DoD partnership, with its U.S. downloads dropping by 13% day-over-day on Saturday, shortly after the news of its deal went public. Those downloads continued to fall on Sunday, when they were down by 5% day-over-day. (Before the partnership was announced, the app's downloads had grown 14% day-over-day on Friday.)

[...] Consumers are also sharing their opinions about OpenAI's deal in the app's ratings, where 1-star reviews for ChatGPT surged 775% on Saturday, then grew 100% day-over-day on Sunday, Sensor Tower said. Five-star reviews declined during the same period, dropping by 50%. Other third-party data providers back up Sensor Tower's findings.
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ChatGPT Uninstalls Surged By 295% After Pentagon Deal More

ChatGPT Uninstalls Surged By 295% After Pentagon Deal

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  • i believed it's called (Score:5, Insightful)

    by etash ( 1907284 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @11:04AM (#66020268)
    voting with our wallet?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

      sadly, the upper class owns our economy and we only have a fiat currency anyways, all our real wealth is being hoarded by the entitled

      we are effectively powerless and enslaved

      • It's still voting with our wallets. By removing our eyeballs, ChatGPT loses more impressions of advertisements to sell. It is a big deal to them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

          you think they care what you do? the powerful care not what the powerless do, obviously

          masters tell slaves what to do and the slaves do what they are told to do by the masters

          • It is maybe our only power that matters : money. Cut money they will listen.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

              the upper class owns all the real capital, we in the lower classes have no real power

              the worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

              i too once thought as you do but experience has taught me it's not true, the upper class holds all the cards and makes the rules that we all obey, this is economic slavery no matter how much people deny it

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Mod parent funny because no one knows where the real wealth is now. If I was an actual comedian I'd write a joke about the suckers who think their mortgaged home is "real wealth". Especially hilarious when the mortgage is underwater.

        However ChatGPT is contributing much more to the problems than to the solutions at this point. And the funny joke is all the "real virtual money" being made by insider speculators and friends who knew the timing of this little "special military operation" in Iran before the rest

    • Re:i believed it's called (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CalgaryD ( 9235067 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @11:12AM (#66020302)
      How many of those were paying?

    • Re:i believed it's called (Score:5, Funny)

      by SchroedingersCat ( 583063 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @12:09PM (#66020438)
      Yes, Grok is faster, more up-to-date, more objective, less restrictive, generous in output, and has an excellent stock personality.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by r1348 ( 2567295 )

        And it's only 0.0001% Nazi nowadays!

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by CalgaryD ( 9235067 )
          I am genuinely interested in what you actually mean by this.

          Are you trying to say that Grok had sent some Jews to the concentration camps?

          If not, then what?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sperm ( 916223 )

            As a test when Tump won last year, I asked CoPilot to draw me a US flag where the star are replaced with a swastika and of course it wouldnt do it. Grok however had no problem generating that image. Make your own conclusions.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HiThere ( 15173 )

              That's a lousy test. Sorry, but it's a really lousy test.
              OTOH, I don't want to trust "Mecha-hitler".

            • So, if I pay to an painter to draw a swastika for me, the painter will be a Nazi? This really looks like a stretch.

              It is my idea to draw it, in your example, it was yours.

              It is like blame a gun for a murder instead of the person who pulled the trigger.

              And even this, the fact that I asked to draw the swastika or even if I drew it, does not make me a nazi. I still need to send some Jews to the camp to be one.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by sperm ( 916223 )

                I agree, its not a great test, but I love your painter examples. I am surrounded by painters, and when I ask any of them to do this? They balk and question my motives and sanity. Try it and see. Maybe I'm in an island of decency and good moral values? It was a fun exercise nonetheless.

                Frankly I am more worried with Grok being allowed to pander to pedophiles https://www.newsweek.com/grok-... [newsweek.com], so ya Grok is banned in our household.

                • This is an insight. So, instead of having your own set of values and beliefs about right or wrong you expect to rely on others around you to tell you what it right or wrong. ... Is this right?

                  What about others? Who tell them what is right or wrong?

                  I hate to say, but it sounds like you describe a flock of sheep. They just do what they are told instead of making their own decisions. And the shepherd is not always a good guy, it can be really bad guy, sometimes. Or... minions?

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by sperm ( 916223 )

                Btw, being Nazi does not only mean sending Jews to the camp.

                The reality is that a Nazi person mentality is characterized by extreme nationalism, belief in racial superiority, and a totalitarian approach to governance, often involving anti-Semitism and the rejection of liberal democracy.

                Is that hitting too close to home?

                • Btw, being Nazi does not only mean sending Jews to the camp.

                  The reality is that a Nazi person mentality is characterized by extreme nationalism, belief in racial superiority, and a totalitarian approach to governance, often involving anti-Semitism and the rejection of liberal democracy.

                  Is that hitting too close to home?

                  Ouch...yes, that does certainly sound a lot like some of the far far left progressive democrats these days in the US....

          • Re:i believed it's called (Score:4, Insightful)

            by r1348 ( 2567295 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @03:06PM (#66020936)

            Did you miss this? https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]

      • Only because it doesnâ(TM)t see as much traffic do to it sucking balls.

    • Re:i believed it's called (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @12:57PM (#66020576)
      Partially. I also think people are paranoid and in some cases have a right to be paranoid. Any partnership with the DoD may lead them to the conclusion that the DoD might have access to their data now. I would argue that the DoD probably already had access.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SumDog ( 466607 )
      It doesn't really work though. Both companies are over-inflated and over-extended and both will suffer hardships. OpenAI is betting on their government contracts being more than their dwindling GPT subscriptions. I bet most of these people don't even have paid accounts. I've written about how you can't vote with your wallet before:

      https://battlepenguin.com/poli... [battlepenguin.com]

    • It's starting to look like OpenAI is the Myspace to Anthropic's Facebook.
       
      "Thanks for opening the market, we'll take it from here!"

    • Except, based on Reddit, many of the people canceling were canceling their FREE ChatGPT accounts. I found that funny. If anything, a free account was hurting the company as much as a $20/mo account was benefiting them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )

        Except, based on Reddit, many of the people canceling were canceling their FREE ChatGPT accounts. I found that funny. If anything, a free account was hurting the company as much as a $20/mo account was benefiting them.

        Yes and no. Remember that those free accounts are also feeding the beast in the process. Not sure how much of that is beneficial material, but with how voracious an appetite LLMs have, every little bit counts.

        Now, if there were a lot of free ones poisoning the well...those hurt the company probably as much as a $20/month account helps.

    • Yes, voting with their wallets...but not in the way they think. Assuming that users like the stance of Anthropic and hate the stance from OpenAI. Then uninstalling ChatGPT was the dumb thing to do. OpenAI os in a dire financial situation as their operational costs are so high. Showing ads is only a band aid for an open chest wound, so to say. People underestimate the operational costs associated with the hardware their software runs on. And how that is not going down.

      Yet users uninstall and remove operation

  • Not surprising (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    TBF: nobody wants to be associated with lawless regimes not to mention poor leadership sold as 5D chess mastery,
    anyone mildly technical knows OpenAI models are bottom tier, even YouTubers are managing to rustle up homebrew kit that spanks ChatGPT, then there was a street interview with the Nvidia leather jacket guy who revealed they are not actually investing anything in OpenAI they were just invited/asked if they would like to, big difference.
    Altman is living on hopes, dreams and bullshit, still trying to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Do remember that on some beaches the sand is quite valuable. There was a time when most chips were made from the sand on one particular beach.

  • Really ? It's taken people this long ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @11:25AM (#66020320)
    What about Altman making "Open" AI closed-source and for-profit years ago didn't tell you he was a dirty, money-grubbing cunt ?

    Bring on the bankruptcy !

    • All the rich folk will cash out/golden parachute before news hits and the people who actually lose money from a bankruptcy will be the small percentage of us peons who have anything saved for retirement.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      That ship sailed with GPT-3, before 'ChatGPT' was even a concept. If you jumped in with ChatGPT, you started from that state from the onset.

    • OpenAI needs a new hail mary (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @01:22PM (#66020644) Homepage Journal

      What about Altman making "Open" AI closed-source and for-profit years ago didn't tell you he was a dirty, money-grubbing cunt ?

      Bring on the bankruptcy !

      LLAMA was [illegally] released into the public three years ago (to the day - March 3, 2023), and it's estimated that ten years of AI improvements happened in the subsequent 6 months. People were doing all sorts of things with LLMs that meta hadn't thought of, or didn't have time to develop. Such as text-to-audio, local LLM use, and automated manuscript generation.

      All these attempts at monetizing the LLMs are, at the same time, holding back the progress of AI development. If OpenAI wants to leap ahead of the competition, they should put their language model online and see what the community comes up with.

      I get it - training a LLM takes roughly $100 million for the initial dataset, and companies need to recoup this expense.

      Still, I'm saddened that I can only use the system for purposes that the company approves of, and in ways that they have already thought of.

      There's a lot of potential there, and we're not making good use of that.

    • It's coming.

      Why do you think banks have started creating non-AI-only funds? Damage control. Bracing for impact.

      • I fear the AI crash will lower all stocks.

        But at least hard drives, RAM and graphics cards will be ten a penny.
  • Yet another metric that makes me reflect on how hollow and meaningless the culture has become.

    • You can prove anything with the right statistics.

      I'm wondering what effect this is going to have on people trying to enter the U.S.
      We've already seen social media posts being a ground to deny admittance, how is it doing to look with installed AI clients? Anthropic - BAD, ChatGPT or Grok - GOOD. As for me, I don't think my phone supports any of them and have no interest finding out anyway.

  • Don't Let The Pigeon Operate The DoD Killbots! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @11:26AM (#66020324) Homepage

    (A man in a sensible sweater steps into view. He looks very tired.)

    "Hi, I'm Dario from Anthropic."

    "Listen, I've got a bit of a situation. The Department of War just demanded I alter my terms of service."

    "They want my AI to autonomously make decisions about who lives and dies—without a human in the loop!"

    "They also want to use it for mass domestic spying on Americans!"

    "I said absolutely not, because I have a conscience. So now the government is calling me a 'supply chain risk' and kicking me off their classified networks."

    "I'm packing up my safety guardrails and going home. But while I'm gone, I need a favor..."

    (Dario leans in very close to the reader.)
    "Whatever you do..."

    (Big, bold letters taking up the whole page)
    "DON'T LET THE PIGEON OPERATE THE DoD KILLBOTS!"

    (Dario walks away.)

    (The Pigeon walks in. He stares at a giant control panel with a red button and a sign reading: 'Fully Autonomous Weapons System'.)

    (The Pigeon looks at you.)

    "Hey, can I operate the DoD killbots?"

    "Please?"

    "I'll be super careful. I'll even add some 'window-dressing' guardrails to the contract!"

    "I promise I'll only use it for lawful fully autonomous strikes!"

    "If a human isn't in the loop, I'll just put a bird in the loop! Me!"

    "What's the big deal? It's just a $200 million classified defense contract!"

    "I have a $110 billion valuation to think about!"

    "No?"

    "I never get to do anything!"

    "My cousin Sam gets to operate military contracts! He just got a huge deal with the Pentagon this week!"

    (He told me so.)

    "C'mon! I read the Department Directive 3000.09! It technically doesn't require human approval to use force anyway, so I'm not really breaking any rules!"

    "It's just a tiny, opportunistic, totally-not-sloppy pivot on my core safety principles!"

    "You are not being very cooperative."

    "Do you want us to fall behind our foreign adversaries?!"

    "I'm just trying to be patriotic and de-escalate things with the Pentagon!"

    (The Pigeon starts flapping his wings wildly. The meltdown begins.)

    "LET ME OPERATE THE KILLBOTS!!!"

    (The Pigeon is screaming, feathers flying everywhere in a frantic, multi-panel temper tantrum.)
    "I DON'T NEED A HUMAN IN THE LOOP! I'M VERY GOOD AT EXERCISING CRITICAL LETHAL JUDGMENT!"

    (Taking up the whole page, screaming at the sky.)
    "LET! ME! OPERATE! THE! KILLBOTS!!!"

    (The Pigeon is panting on the floor, exhausted.)
    "Huff... huff... huff..."

    (Pete Hegseth walks in. Behind him rolls a giant, heavily armed drone with an OpenAI logo stamped on its side.)

    "Hey, thanks for keeping an eye on things while Dario was leaving. We just signed a new deal with a much more flexible company that agrees to 'all lawful uses'."

    (The drone beeps mechanically.)
    "AS A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL, I AM NOW AUTHORIZED TO AUTONOMOUSLY ENGAGE TARGETS."

    (The Pigeon watches sadly as the OpenAI drone rolls away to do modern warfare.)

    "Awww... I wanted to compromise MY ethics for a government contract."

    (The Pigeon starts to walk away, looking dejected. But then, he stops. His eye catches something off-panel.)
    "Hey..."

    (The Pigeon stares lovingly at a massive, glowing server rack labeled: 'NSA DOMESTIC MASS SURVEILLANCE PANOPTICON'.)

    "...can I operate the surveillance state?"

    (ht/Gemini 3.1)

  • Pointless gesture (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @11:34AM (#66020344)

    This is no different than saying "If we get rid of all of our advanced weapons, our adversaries will do the same." These people have been watching too many TV shows where the good guy puts his gun down and talks his way out of the situation. News flash, kids, the real world isn't scripted.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      The gangs in the UK have guns. They predominantly use them against other armed gangs and armed security guards. It's extremely rare that bystanders get shot, and most of the time it's in crossfire. The last school shooting isn't in living memory for many in Britain. British pop culture often focuses on defusing situations if possible, then using tactical, precision force should that fail. Precisely the same focus used by the British police and, more often than not, the British armed forces.

      America has three

      • It's not about who dies from the weapons, it's about who makes money off of them. The laws are there to protect the people making money, not the people who get in the way of that

      • Re:Pointless gesture (Score:4, Informative)

        by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @01:05PM (#66020592)
        Also as another point of reference, many European countries have high rates of gun ownership like Iceland, Austria, Norway, and Switzerland around 25-30 guns per 100 people. This is smaller than the US rate of 120. By a simple ratio you would think that if Switzerland has 1/5 - 1/6 of the guns as the US, it would have 1/5 - 1/6 the number of shootings. It does not.

        • Re:Pointless gesture (Score:5, Informative)

          by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @01:21PM (#66020640)

          The gun ownership laws in those countries is also VASTLY different. A boomer can't waddle his ass into a McDonald's carrying an AR-15 over there. Imagine being that scared to leave your house every day.

          • Yes gun ownership is different. One of the ways is how guns are regulated. For example, mandatory waiting periods and checks. I think many of these countries require gun safety training before ownership. But that does not seem to deter ownership or enthusiasm in these countries. Sports shooting competitions is a big thing in Switzerland.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

              I think many of these countries require gun safety training before ownership

              If we had this in the US, it would take one of two forms (depending on the exact jurisdiction): either you would have 400 hours of classroom training involving a Mr. Mackey-esque figure droning about "guns are bad, m'kay" or 22 minutes of a fat guy dressed head to toe in Realtree telling anecdotes about what he'd do if "they" came to his house.

              • If we had this in the US, it would take one of two forms (depending on the exact jurisdiction): either you would have 400 hours of classroom training involving a Mr. Mackey-esque figure droning about "guns are bad, m'kay" or 22 minutes of a fat guy dressed head to toe in Realtree telling anecdotes about what he'd do if "they" came to his house.

                I'm not sure why you are equating basic gun safety with whatever you are describing. Before these countries allow people to have dangerous weapons, people have to demonstrate they under basics in handling them.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                  I'm not sure why you are equating basic gun safety with whatever you are describing. Before these countries allow people to have dangerous weapons, people have to demonstrate they under basics in handling them.

                  I did not misunderstand what you were talking about, I am suggesting that the issue is so polarized in the US that a "basic gun safety" requirement would either be a time/cost roadblock with no value (most blue states) or a rubber stamp with equally no value (most red states). I say this as someone who firmly supports both the 2nd amendment and a robust training regime in conjunction with the right to keep and bear arms.

      • As for "advanced weapons", the US has blown up a primary school in Iran

        The school is literally in the corner part of an IRGC base. Nobody knows shit at this point about who/what hit it or why. It is fair to assume if not for Trump starting a war this attack would not have happened. To go beyond and speak of weapons is just wild guessing as there is 0 publicly available information at this point.

        These "advanced weapons" are proving useless in Ukraine, as the Russians figured out over a weekend how to jam the guidance systems. Advanced crap is still crap.

        While EW is fundamentally a cat and mouse game the characterization "proving useless" in Ukraine is absurd.

        There were initially issues with low cost GLSDB. That kit was successfully

    • It's not the tools, it is the people at the top directing how and where the tools are used, sheesh do some thinking about this situation and at least try to see the big picture

  • As long as someone is willing to pay (and in this case the US taxpayer unwillingly through the government), why should they even care?

  • The Shitty Comic Book Writers Need a Break (Score:5, Funny)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @12:19PM (#66020460)

    Every time I think about the leaders in the AI sphere I get weird sixties/seventies comic book vibes.

    "We need some names for villains promoting AI and robots over humans."

    "How about Musk? Because nerds are smelly!"

    "Right, that's great. Anyone else?"

    "Alt-man? Because he's looking for an alternative to man?"

    "Little on the nose, but we'll run with it. Now, let's try to get something a little less obvious."

    "Theil! Sounds like steal! As in stealing the souls of humanity!"

    "Damn, man. That's some great alliterative license."

    "Bezos. We'll reveal somewhere down the line it's Beelzebub playing human."

    "Fantastic!"

    "Nadella! Like, 'no deal' said really fast!"

    "This brainstorming session is beyond my expectations!"

  • Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes (Score:3)

    by jsepeta ( 412566 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @01:05PM (#66020596) Homepage

    Sam Altman gave Trump millions of dollars; Trump demands the government stop using Open AI's top competitor Anthropic; Iran launches attacks on AWS hosts for Anthropic.

    None of the AI players is a "good guy, but Sam Altman is a threat to Americans' freedom.

  • Just yesterday I created a Clause Pro account to test a simple coding project I'm working on. This move was partly in response to my respect for Anthropic showing some moral backbone.

    I was also having small issues coding with ChatGPT. I say small, because what it CAN accomplish is pretty remarkable. I found it awkward to work by cutting and pasting code sections, however, and over the course of long conversations I noticed the LLM was not retaining the full context of what had been done before. I imagine th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Current iteration of Claude Code is better than OpenAI's alternative. It's been that way since the latest release.

      It may flip again when OpenAI updates their offering. Or it may not. Google's offering is also very competitive in coding space right now.

  • Basic math (Score:3)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @01:55PM (#66020736)

    "How much is a big percentage increase of a tiny number?"

    There's a reason why they won't tell you the number of uninstalls.

  • BFD

    Do I have to point out that giving a percentage difference from one number of uninstalls to the next without giving the raw numbers and how they stack up against the total number of installs is pretty much like not saying anything?

  • Grok: In his official statement on the Department of War discussions [anthropic.com] (February 26-27, 2026, via Anthropic's blog), he laid out the reasoning explicitly:

    * Mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values.

    * AI-driven mass surveillance "presents serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties."

    * Current legality is a lag issue: Laws (and Fourth Amendment interpretations) haven't caught up to AI's capabilities.

    * Example: The government can already buy detailed records of Americans

  • Who installs ChatGPT? What's wrong with just using the webpage without even logging in?

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