The OpenAI boss said Anthropic’s portrayal of how ads impact ChatGPT is ‘clearly dishonest.’
The OpenAI boss said Anthropic’s portrayal of how ads impact ChatGPT is ‘clearly dishonest.’
Sam Altman responded to Anthropic’s new Super Bowl ad in an X post on Wednesday, saying the OpenAI competitor’s campaign is “clearly dishonest,” and called it “on brand” for Anthropic to “doublespeak.” “We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them,” he wrote. “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.” You can read his statement in full, below.
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by ex-OpenAI research executives who reportedly left over differences in opinions on AI safety and mission, doesn’t mention OpenAI or ChatGPT by name in its Super Bowl Sunday ad campaign. But in contrast to OpenAI’s January news that it would soon start testing ads, Anthropic says, “Our users won’t see ‘sponsored’ links adjacent to their conversations with Claude; nor will Claude’s responses be influenced by advertisers or include third-party product placements our users did not ask for.”
OpenAI says its ad test will only appear for logged-in users on free or ChatGPT Go accounts, while maintaining that “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled.” According to Altman, OpenAI’s Super Bowl ad is “about builders, and how anyone can now build anything.”
First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.
But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.
I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it.
More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US, so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do. (If you want to pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro, we don’t show you ads.)
Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions.
Maybe even more importantly: Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI—they block companies they don’t like from using their coding product (including us), they want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can’t use AI for, and now they also want to tell other companies what their business models can be.
We are committed to broad, democratic decision making in addition to access. We are also committed to building the most resilient ecosystem for advanced AI. We care a great deal about safe, broadly beneficial AGI, and we know the only way to get there is to work with the world to prepare.
One authoritarian company won’t get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path.
As for our Super Bowl ad: it’s about builders, and how anyone can now build anything.
We are enjoying watching so many people switch to Codex. There have now been 500,000 app downloads since launch on Monday, and we think builders are really going to love what’s coming in the next few weeks. I believe Codex is going to win.
We will continue to work hard to make even more intelligence available for lower and lower prices to our users.
This time belongs to the builders, not the people who want to control them.
