When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to shake hands during a photo op at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, it seemed to be a sign of their growing antagonism.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially opened the first significant AI forum of the Global South on February 19. Many joined hands in a symbolic gesture as political and corporate leaders met on stage for a “family photo.” Amodei and Altman, standing next to each other, didn’t. Rather of making eye contact, they stood with their arms apart yet lifted, an odd gesture that soon attracted notice.
Did the seeming uneasiness represent the escalating hostilities between the two AI leaders?
At one point, Amodei held a senior position at OpenAI. After managing the teams behind GPT-2 and GPT-3 and serving as vice president of research, he and a number of other researchers left the business in 2020. As time went on, disagreements arose regarding OpenAI’s course, especially after its 2019 collaboration with Microsoft.
Amodei reportedly feared that growing commercial demands would jeopardize the long-term safety of AI. According to reports, he preferred a research setting free from the pressures of quick commercial product launches. Amodei allegedly left to co-found Anthropic after disagreements over strategy and governance reportedly grew more intense.
The AI race gets more intense
At around $500 billion and $380 billion, respectively, OpenAI and Anthropic are currently the two most valuable closely owned AI companies in the world. This year, their rivalry has intensified as Anthropic has made a number of breakthroughs, chief among them the widespread use of its Claude Code suite, which has surpassed OpenAI’s Codex in terms of market traction.
In response, OpenAI hired the developer of OpenClaw, a popular open-source AI tool that was first developed with Anthropic’s technology.
There have also been public displays of the rivalry. By claiming that advertising has no place in AI chatbot conversations and promising to keep Claude ad-free, Anthropic took direct aim at OpenAI in a well-known Super Bowl commercial.
In a 420-word response on X, Altman, whose business has been experimenting with advertising strategies, argued that ad-supported services may increase the accessibility of AI.
Altman answers
In a February 19 interview with Moneycontrol, Altman played down the incident, stating that he did not know what to anticipate from the photo opportunity. “I had no idea what was going on on stage. “I was unsure of our intended course of action,” he stated.
