There’s no love being lost between Sam Altman and Dario Amodei.
At India’s AI Summit in New Delhi on Thursday, the respective CEOs of OpenAI and Athropic shared the stage with roughly a dozen other industry and political leaders, including the nation’s prime minister Narendra Modi. As they stood in a line facing the crowd, Modi beckoned them to join hands and raise them above their heads, presenting a united front.
Except Altman and Amodei, whose companies are bitter rivals, didn’t follow suit. Instead of holding hands, there’s only a brief moment of awkward eye contact as they largely avoid looking at each other, with Amodei searching around himself in a kind of “who, me?” gesture — which, had it been on a different kind of stage, would be hailed as a great bit of comic acting. In the end, both Altman and Amodei elected to raise a closed fist with the hands they should’ve been locking.
It was, as one Redditor described, a “cringe masterpiece.” Amodei did not look particularly thrilled. Altman, as he waited for Amodei’s final decision, held his free hand in front of his chest, seemingly confused.
It heightened what was already an absurd spectacle. The leaders of an industry that promises utopia on the horizon were smiling as they showed support for a prime minister who’s been widely criticized as authoritarian, all holding hands like they’re about to play ring around the rosie.
The rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic goes deep. Anthropic was formed from a splinter group of former OpenAI employees, including Amodei, who left the company because of differences over its direction and to focus on safety.
But it’s recently reached new heights. This month, Anthropic piled pressure onto OpenAI with a new series of Super Bowl commercials that were a thinly-veiled dig at OpenAI’s decision to start shoving advertisements into ChatGPT.
And it clearly struck a nerve. Altman unbecomingly responded with a lengthy rant on X, accusing the Anthropic ads of being “deceptive” and suggesting that Anthropic was an “authoritarian company.” That’s while admitting he thought the ads were “funny,” as if to convince us that he could take a joke, and not be having the mini-meltdown that he was clearly experiencing.
The two companies are also poised to lock heads over shaping the industry’s regulation. Last week, Anthropic announced it would pour $20 million into a super PAC formed to combat another super PAC backed by key OpenAI figures and investors. Anthropic’s side is fighting for stronger AI regulation, while OpenAI’s favors a laissez-faire playing field. Among other things, the money will go to the campaigns of favored candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
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