Sam Altman acquired exceptionally testy over Claude Tremendous Bowl adverts

[ad_1] Anthropic’s Tremendous Bowl business, certainly one of 4 adverts the AI lab dropped on Wednesday, begins with the phrase “BETRAYAL” splashed boldly throughout the display screen. The digital camera pans to a person earnestly asking a chatbot (clearly supposed to depict ChatGPT) for recommendation on tips on how to speak to his mother.

The bot, portrayed by a blonde girl, affords some traditional bits of recommendation. Begin by listening. Attempt a nature stroll! After which twists into an advert for a fictitious (we hope!) cougar-dating web site referred to as Golden Encounters. Anthropic finishes the spot by saying that whereas adverts are coming to AI, they received’t be coming to its personal chatbot, Claude.

One other business incorporates a slight younger man in search of recommendation on constructing a six pack. After providing his top, age, and weight, the bot serves him an advert for height-boosting insoles.

The Anthropic commercials are cleverly aimed toward OpenAI’s customers, after that firm’s current announcement that adverts shall be coming to ChatGPT’s free tier. They usually brought on a direct stir, spawning headlines that Anthropic “mocks,” “skewers,” and “dunks on” OpenAI.

They're humorous sufficient that even Sam Altman admitted on X that he laughed at them. However he clearly didn’t actually discover them humorous. They impressed him to put in writing a novella-sized rant that devolved into calling his rival “dishonest” and “authoritarian.”

First, the great a part of the Anthropic adverts: they're humorous, and I laughed.

However I'm wondering why Anthropic would go for one thing so clearly dishonest. Our most vital precept for adverts says that we received’t do precisely this; we'd clearly by no means run adverts in the way in which Anthropic…

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 4, 2026

In that publish, Altman explains that an ad-supported tier is meant to shoulder the burden of providing free ChatGPT to lots of its tens of millions of customers. ChatGPT continues to be the preferred chatbot by a big margin.

However the OpenAI CEO insisted the adverts had been “dishonest” in implying that ChatGPT will twist a dialog to insert an advert (and presumably for an off-color product, besides).”We might clearly by no means run adverts in the way in which Anthropic depicts them,” Altman wrote within the social media publish. “We're not silly and we all know our customers would reject that.”

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Certainly, OpenAI has promised adverts shall be separate, labeled, and can by no means affect a chat. However the firm has additionally mentioned it's planning on making them conversation-specific — which is the central allegation of Anthropic’s adverts. As OpenAI defined on its weblog, “We plan to check adverts on the backside of solutions in ChatGPT when there’s a related sponsored services or products primarily based in your present dialog.”

Altman then went on to fling some equally questionable assertions at his rival. “Anthropic serves an costly product to wealthy individuals,” he wrote. “We additionally really feel strongly that we have to carry AI to billions of people that can’t pay for subscriptions.”

However Claude has a free chat tier, too, with subscriptions at $0, $17, $100, and $200. ChatGPT’s tiers are $0, $8, $20, and $200. One may argue the subscription tiers are pretty equal.

Altman additionally alleged in his publish that “Anthropic desires to regulate what individuals do with AI.” He argues it blocks utilization of Claude Code from “corporations they don’t like,” like OpenAI, and mentioned Anthropic tells individuals what they will and may’t use AI for.

True, Anthropic’s entire advertising and marketing deal since day one has been “accountable AI.” The corporate was based by two former OpenAI alums, in spite of everything, who claimed they grew alarmed about AI security after they labored there.

Nonetheless, each chatbot corporations have utilization insurance policies, AI guardrails, and speak about AI security. And whereas OpenAI permits ChatGPT for use for erotica whereas Anthropic doesn't, OpenAI, like Anthropic, has decided that some content material ought to be blocked, notably with reference to psychological well being.

But Altman took this Anthropic-tells-you-what-to-do argument to an excessive degree when he accused Anthropic of being “authoritarian.”

“One authoritarian firm received’t get us there on their very own, to say nothing of the opposite apparent dangers. It's a darkish path,” he wrote.

Utilizing “authoritarian” in a rant over a cheeky Tremendous Bowl advert is misplaced, at greatest. It’s notably tactless when contemplating the present geopolitical setting through which protesters world wide have been killed by brokers of their very own authorities. Whereas enterprise rivals have been duking it out in adverts because the starting of time, clearly Anthropic hit a nerve.