An ethics expert highlighted concerns for OpenAI competitors about an executive attending the Taylor Swift concert in New Orleans (pictured) with the Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth.

Among the thousands of fans screaming in awe at Taylor Swift’s New Orleans concert over the weekend was Katrina Mulligan, who leads national security policy and partnerships at OpenAI. In a photo she posted to LinkedIn, Mulligan is grinning widely behind sparkling heart-shaped glasses. Pictured next to her and donning a Swift-inspired mirror-ball cowboy hat, is the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth.

“I went to see Taylor Swift in New Orleans with the Secretary of the Army and it was every bit as EPIC as it sounds,” Mulligan posted on Sunday.

Less epic were the optics of a senior government official hanging out with a top advisor to an AI company that recently began competing for, and landing, government contracts. After dropping a clause in its usage terms in January about banning applications for “military and warfare,” the world’s largest AI company, recently valued at $157 billion, has been aggressively courting the Pentagon. Last week, the Intercept reported on the first publicly known example of the Pentagon’s use of OpenAI applications through a contract with Microsoft, which resells OpenAI’s products.

U.S. Army spokesperson, Colonel Randee Farrell, said in a statement Wormuth........

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