A moment intended to showcase united commitment to global tech innovation at the ongoing India AI Impact Summit instead proved awkward. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi prompted speakers at the event to join hands and raise them in a show of solidarity, all executives on stage obliged except for OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, who held their hands noticeably apart.
As leaders of the two foremost labs in the AI race, Altman and Amodei are fierce competitors. That rivalry has intensified in recent months. After OpenAI said it would bring advertisements to ChatGPT, Anthropic took a swipe at OpenAI in a couple of ads during the Super Bowl, declaring it would never introduce ads into Claude.
Sam Altman soon hit back, calling Anthropic “dishonest” and “authoritarian.” He stated that OpenAI would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them, noting that the company is not stupid and knows its users would reject that approach.
Both Altman and Amodei were in India this week for the AI summit held in New Delhi, which saw a series of AI-related investments, features, and product announcements. OpenAI said it is opening two new offices in India, partnering with IT giant TCS, and is deploying tools for higher education. Anthropic has also opened an office in India and teamed up with Infosys for internal and external deployment of its AI tools.