Sam Altman has fired back at what viewers are describing as a 'generational ad' from Anthropic mocking ChatGPT\s controversial new ad policy.
Last month, OpenAI announced it would begin showing advertisements to certain US users on its ChatGPT platform as a way to boost revenue beyond subscriptions and help fund the technology's high development costs.
The ads will reportedly be tested on members using the company’s free tier and the lower-priced Go plan, which is becoming a common option among users.
But as is often the case in the tech world, one company's major announcement comes with its rival's brutal response.
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Anthropic's Claude AI seized the moment with a tongue-in-cheek SuperBowl ad, taking aim at AI companies that incorporate advertisements.
One X user reshared one of the ads with the caption: "anthropic is cooking open ai".
The ad showed a man asking an AI impersonation of a personal trainer on 'how to get a six pack quickly,' as the characteristically robotic trainer then pitches insoles that 'help short kings stand tall' and offers a discount code. The ad then ends with the tagline: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude."
Anthropic had already made its stance clear on AI ads, stating its commitment to an ad-free user experience regardless of what competitors choose to do.
“We want Claude to act unambiguously in our users’ interests,” the AI giant previously stated in its blog post. “So we’ve made a choice: Claude will remain ad-free. 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.”
Now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has hit back, calling the ads 'funny' but wasn't sure 'why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest.'
In a lengthy post, Altman explained: "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."
The AI executive pointed out that 'more Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US' and that ChatGPT users who wish to avoid seeing any ads at all can 'pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro.'
He went on to say that Anthropic serves as an 'expensive product to rich people' before accusing the company of trying to control how AI tools should be used by 'blocking' other companies (including his own) from accessing their coding systems.
"They want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can't use AI for," Altman claimed.
At the time of launch, OpenAI said its adverts would be clearly marked, would not influence AI responses and would not give advertisers access to user conversations.
Altman concluded in his X post: "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."