The US Department of Defense on Friday signed agreements with seven artificial intelligence (AI) giants to deploy their powerful AI systems on its secure classified networks. The deals notably left out Anthropic, the firm behind the popular AI assistant Claude, due to a dispute over safety restrictions on military use. What do we know about the Pentagon deals? The agreements include well-known firms such as OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT —  Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, NVIDIA, SpaceX, and Reflection — a startup making powerful open-source AI. The goal is to expand access to advanced AI technology within the United States  military for defense and security work.…