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Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

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Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#51
I am far from a SamA stan, but this line was pretty good a zinger:

"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.)"

Why the incumbent BigCo AI CEO -- who has more Texans using their product than apparently Claude's entire US userbase -- needs to or rather is choosing to be using zingers to make a rebuttal about a competitor's ads is much more interesting than the content of the message itself... which is mostly corporate feelgood slop.

Is OpenAI's runway actually as bad as the doomers like Ed Zitron think it is? Is OpenAI's deal with NVIDIA actually on ice? Are they seeing something in the subscription data that is troubling? Maybe it's nothing and SamA just felt like doing some dunking on twitter today. Or maybe the stress levels around running openAI have increased.

I previously thought OpenAI was going to be fine and the doomers were wrong. I still think the race is theirs to lose since they have very strong branding and userbase right now. But this is a very weak signal that gives me more pause about OpenAI's future than any of the doomsayer articles have.

I give a slightly higher weight to my psychoanalysis of the company's CEO's actions because none of the doomer articles have access to material nonpublic information or company internals to truly opine on the financial health of a multibillion dollar enterprise.

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#52

He sounds rattled, you don't respond in this manner from the position of power. They didn't need to respond at all, all they did opening their mouth is bring more eyes to Anthropic.

IDK if it was the right move to complain that a competitor won't license their competing software to your company.

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#53
post #20

Anthropic’s strategy is weird, they may not be inserting ads today but I am sure this is where they will end up if they get enough volume of users. So saying “not to Claude” is putting them in the same plane as google’s “do no evil”. They will walk it back sooner or later.

'Not to Claude' is a great slogan for 2026; let's see if it survives 2028

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#54
> 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.

This is a glaring admission ChatGPT is a poor man's Claude in the literal sense.

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#56
post #51

I am far from a SamA stan, but this line was pretty good a zinger: "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.)" Why the incumbent BigCo AI CEO -- who has more Texans using their product than apparently Claude's entire US userbase -- needs to or rather is choosing to…

> I am far from a SamA stan, but this line was pretty good a zinger:

That zinger seemed similar to how Trump deals with criticism from the media -- he tends to begin with an attack on the ratings / popularity of the speaker.

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#57
post #42

your daily Streisand effect: * https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4 * https://youtu.be/De-_wQpKw0s * https://youtu.be/kQRu7DdTTVA * https://youtu.be/3sVD3aG_azw Hope the dude is ok, can't imagine getting so offended by these ads

I hadn't watched these before, but wow the AI wars are no joke. "Betrayal", "Deception", "Violation", "Treachery"... It's like the Cola Wars, but 10x more personal.

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#58
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter. Companies are hypocritical all the time, a few people make noise at the time, then it’s forgotten.

You're right. As long as they don't make a long series of these ads and espouse it as a virtue like Google did with their 'don't be evil', no one will care.

[dead]

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#59
post #43
post #18

I will never understand these chronically online CEOs. Your company has given up its massive lead in AI and is falling further behind Google and Anthropic with every passing day and you have nothing better to do than fight ego battles with random people on X all day? Should be a clear signal to the board that there needs to be a shake up at the top.

It's influencer marketing. These 'ego battles' are a show to keep their brand in front of you. It's engaging like reality television. This is very valuable, especially for companies that need to fund their growth through investment and grants.

This smells a lot of "any publicity is good publicity", which has been false for more than a decade. You know what makes line go up? Results.

Re: Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads

#60
post #48
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's influencer marketing. These 'ego battles' are a show to keep their brand in front of you. It's engaging like reality television. This is very valuable, especially for companies that need to fund their growth through investment and grants.

I wish more people were as astute. The front matter of big politics and big tech is not too different from professional wrestling.

I think OP could be just as astute as you meant. They probably know that Altman is engaging in marketing, but still tried to make a case that it shouldn't be a good strategy and instead illustrates his character. Not that I disagree, as people could see the unnecessary drama as a sign of immature behavior and a negative net result in the long term, regardless if it generates press today. As many other commenters remarked, they will from now think twice about trusting Altman's ventures in the future in light of this long-winded tweet.
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