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Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads
https://xcancel.com/sama/status/2019139174339928189 https://xcancel.com/sama/status/2019139174339928189
- johnsmith1840 9mo agoHit a nerve huh?
- add-sub-mul-div 9mo agoAds will expand to fill all online spaces. Ads will inevitably come to both, it's just a matter of when they respectively need or decide to capture that profit and when they feel their users are sufficiently dependent so as not to be able to leave.
- AndyKelley 9mo agoNo ads on Wikipedia tho, not even after 25 years.
- Lerc 9mo agoDo you not think those intrusive banners and popups implying that Wikipedia is about to imminently go broke unless you give them money, are ads?
- AndyKelley 9mo agoI think you're letting pedantry hinder you from seeing a useful pattern.
- Lerc 9mo agoI shall take that as a no, then. I don't think it takes pedantry to think advertising in order to solicit funds for a non-profit is still advertising. If anything the criteria I would apply is does it diminish the user experience while attempting to motivate the viewer to act in a manner that benefits the advertiser. May I ask why you do not consider it advertising? Is it because it is asking for donations? Because it is a non-profit? If so, why would those factors exempt them? I am certainly not alone in thinking their fundraising campaigns are intrusive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33175098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33175098
- sadeshmukh 9mo agoIt's about who they're fundraising for. Wikipedia fundraising for Wikipedia is fundamentally different than selling out ad space to the highest bidder.
- AndyKelley 9mo agoAs an example, a line that they don't cross, but a for-profit company absolutely would, is compromising the integrity of the encyclopedia articles. For example, a marketing department would pay a lot of money for Wikipedia to delete or soften https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9 but they'll never do that, not for profit at least.
- cwillu 9mo agoThe first fundraising banner on wikipedia was in 2003. That is unquestionably an advertisement, and not even an ethical one given the misleading nature of their campaigns these days.
- Insanity 9mo agoI’m going to say this is a different ballpark. They are fundraising for themselves.. on their own website.. That’s quite different from shoving ads in your face where it doesn’t belong. Like an ad for Copilot on a YouTube video. IMO it’s distinct.
- bdangubic 9mo agonever thought I’d see fundraising compared to ads but here we are… :)
- Handy-Man 9mo agoHe 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.
- plagiarist 9mo agoIDK if it was the right move to complain that a competitor won't license their competing software to your company.
- swordsith 9mo agoYeah that was telling as to why he was having this fit it seems.
- keyle 9mo agoSuper-peeved. The intro with the "they're funny and I laughed." and then loses face attacking back...
- Aboutplants 9mo agoSam is not having a good week, Nvidia potentially backing out of a 100 billion dollar “commitment”, now looking a fool for getting butt hurt because a company is trying to gain market share via marketing. Looking awfully pathetic
- themafia 9mo ago> One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own Says the guy trying to buy high resolution scans of people's eyeballs for $25 a pop. Okay dude.
- piva00 9mo agoA supremely weak move, perhaps sama didn't learn anything from being on reddit and watching how online discourse doesn't ever favour the defensive ones. There was absolutely no need to come out publicly with such whiny remarks, it's marketing, as the CEO I'd expect much better than that, he should know that it doesn't help at all. Even more since the ad was funny, coming out with dry remarks about the obvious misrepresentation made as a joke is frankly a bit pathetic. Losing move but the interesting part is: why? Something hit a nerve, maybe it's a sign of some buildup of stress from overcommitments? I cannot understand...
- harmonic18374 9mo agoI think it's all he knows. His "oh, shucks" good-boy routine is what he's been doing for 15 years now, it's gotten him far, it's never been genuine, but it feels especially out of place now with much attention on him and his lies being so obvious.
- s5300 9mo ago[dead]
- Kiboneu 9mo ago“ we believe access creates agency” Whose agency? Ads are designed to reduce agency. It’s a red queen’s race from there. It leads to a high level of optimized manipulation and intrusiveness. That was one of the core points of anthropic’s article. sama is right that anthropic’s and openai’s businesses are differently shaped. Thank goodness for that.
- jethronethro 9mo agoMaybe Altman is talking about creating ad agencies?
- CamperBob2 9mo agoIf he had any sense he'd buy the one that did these.
- tempodox 9mo agoWhat, can’t his “AI” replicate it?
- CamperBob2 9mo agoAlmost, but not quite. Another 2-3 years at the current rate of progress and there will be no need to hire actors for these sorts of productions. Or copywriters either, for that matter.
- wakawaka28 9mo agoAds can either reduce agency or increase it. You can get useful information from ads. It's just got a low payoff, in many cases.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Kiboneu 9mo ago
- redwood 9mo agoWhat is this site? A view into X or a new social media site?
- kylecazar 9mo agoThe former
- spenvo 9mo ago"One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path." OpenAI President Greg Brockman was the biggest donor to Trump's super PAC in H2 2025, donating $25M https://www.techmeme.com/260102/p10#a260102p10 https://www.techmeme.com/260102/p10#a260102p10
- baubino 9mo agoThat line stood out to me too. I don’t care about any of these companies but one of them accusing another of being authoritarian and a “dark path” is quite ironic.
- fuzzfactor 9mo agoYou could interpret it as saying that it's going to take two authoritarian companies . . .
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- 827a 9mo agoThis is really, really bad for OpenAI; both these ads (which are very good) and Sam's response.
- JoshPurtell 9mo agoCompletely absent of substance
- ddtaylor 9mo agoIt appears now that zero, with your zero added, has created a final total sum of zero as well.
- paxys 9mo agoI 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.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- tombert 9mo agoI've said before, and I stand by it: Judging by the fact that many CEOs of these BigCos are often the leaders of several other companies, the CEO job probably isn't that hard.
- jsheard 9mo agoAltman said himself that he felt useless compared to Codex, so maybe Codex should just run the company. It would certainly be cheaper.
- tombert 9mo agoMy dad used to have a boss (at the VP level) who he pejoratively nicknamed "VPGPT", because he thought the guy's management was not significantly better or even different than what you'd get from ChatGPT.
- daifi 9mo agoThe instant feedback you get from posting on social media is more gratifying/addicting than any other marketing campaign. That's what drives all these CEOs, in my opinion.
- halyconWays 9mo agoHe's a narcissist and has to defend his ego
- kylecazar 9mo ago
- pcurve 9mo agoNot a fan of Altman, but I don't think the ad will serve Anthropic well in long run. They may not run ads for foreseeable future, but there will come a point where they introduce a different tier service that does, whether they want it or not. Their investors will call the shot.
- catlifeonmars 9mo agoHate to say it, but no one will remember or care when that time comes. It costs them very little to say that if they have no plans in the immediate future to serve ads.
- Insanity 9mo agoIt doesn’t matter. Companies are hypocritical all the time, a few people make noise at the time, then it’s forgotten.
- pcurve 9mo agoYou'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.
- quietsegfault 9mo ago[dead]
- daleswanson 9mo agoDo you think Google suffered any consequences for ignoring their "Don't be evil" motto?
- satvikpendem 9mo agoNo one cared about Google's doing, either, to any material degree.
- yalogin 9mo agoAnthropic’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.
- j45 9mo agoSometimes quality is worth it over quantity of users. The free to paid user ratio of both services is worth seeing too. Personally I find both are growing cleanly into their own areas of strengths and that's actually a good thing because it provides more coverage for solutions.
- chuckadams 9mo agoWhen they change Claude's name, you know all the old promises are getting broken.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- bdangubic 9mo agothey won’t walk it back cause no one will remember it
- yas_hmaheshwari 9mo ago'Not to Claude' is a great slogan for 2026; let's see if it survives 2028
- midoBB 9mo agoIt's the same ad campaign Samsung did with the charger and headphone jack after Apple ditched them. Let's see if they hold out longer than what Samsung did back then.
- brador 9mo agoPlayStation also used this style of ad when Xbox first tried to go all digital.
- bmitc 9mo agoIs he claiming that Anthropic doesn't have a free Claude Code? Because it does.
- samstokes 9mo agoDoes it? Claude the chatbot is available for free, and it can write code, but Claude Code is a separate product that as far as I know is only available on paid plans. Source: https://claude.com/product/claude-code https://claude.com/product/claude-code
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- starkeeper 9mo agoSo Spam Altham admits in the first paragraph they are bringing ADS to ChatGPT and then whines about his competition the rest of the article.
- Sammi 9mo agoI can't shake the feeling of being spoken to by Gríma Wormtongue. It's just the way Sam talks. The words and phrases he chooses. So much tortured persuasion in all he says.
- starkeeper 9mo agoomg yes and it is totally 1000% fake. He's using "Vocal Fry" to sound like the weirdo he is. (google vocal fry if you have not heard of it.... Teen girls this manner of changing their voice back in the 0'10s. His version is even more intense like he swallowed a broken motor boat.
- mi_lk 9mo agoyour daily Streisand effect: * https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4 https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4 * https://youtu.be/De-_wQpKw0s https://youtu.be/De-_wQpKw0s * https://youtu.be/kQRu7DdTTVA https://youtu.be/kQRu7DdTTVA * https://youtu.be/3sVD3aG_azw https://youtu.be/3sVD3aG_azw Hope the dude is ok, can't imagine getting so offended by these ads
- bicepjai 9mo agoThis is hilarious. I did not know until now. Black mirror episode for this era is staying with ads :)
- djeastm 9mo agoI 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.
- 4d4m 9mo agoWhen I first saw these titles I thought they were cheesey. Then I started to appreciate the advertising team's distillation of the core user pain point into a single word at the intro. Completely changed my initial perspective!
- ddtaylor 9mo agoWell played Anthropic!
- NedF 9mo ago[dead]
- verdverm 9mo agoAt least he can't levy arbitrary and capricous tariffs because a commercial upset his fragile ego
- tempodox 9mo agoNot yet. Just wait until he has all the power.
- Wowfunhappy 9mo ago> 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. But they are paying, aren't they? Advertisements don't generate money from thin air. Advertisements cause people to spend money they otherwise would not have spent. That's why companies buy ads in the first place. And if you're showing ads to poor people, you're probably causing them to spend money they don't have.
- skybrian 9mo agoIt's a bit more complicated. On average, someone is paying, but averages can be misleading. As we see with free-to-play games, whales can subsidize a lot of usage by other people who don't pay a thing. It seems like the same is true of advertising. Yes, some people are spending money but it doesn't necessarily follow that they're people who can't afford it.
- Wowfunhappy 9mo agoDon't advertisers generally know the income bracket of the person seeing the ad? Otherwise what is all the tracking for?
- nrb 9mo agoYeah the whole cognitive disconnect that advertising is anything other than serving an expensive product to rich people deserves a smirk at minimum.
- R_Man77 9mo agoI 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.
- dougb5 9mo ago> 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.
- smuhakg 9mo ago> 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.
- AreShoesFeet000 9mo agoI literally opened Claude’s website to check for prices. I ain’t rich but I’m not really trying to go with the poor man’s AI.
- techblueberry 9mo agothe lady doth protest too much, methinks.
- uejfiweun 9mo agoThe guy's a master of spin, no doubt. I don't know how you start out with the concept of ads in AI chatbots and end with "This time belongs to the builders, not the people who want to control them." What a bunch of generic nonsense... and yet people lap it up like puppy dogs.
- jimmydoe 9mo ago> We are committed to broad, democratic decision making in addition to access. We are also committed to building the most resilient ecosystem for advanced AI. We care a great deal about safe, broadly beneficial AGI, and we know the only way to get there is to work with the world to prepare. > One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path. It’s one thing to say your competitors are hypocrites they will have ads one day, just watch. But democratic vs authoritarian? Come on. What is next? They are Chinese spies and Russian agents? Smh
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoRelated: Claude Is a Space to Think https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46884883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46884883
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892904
- raincole 9mo agoNo one should care. Seriously, we all know: 1) Those Anthropic ads don't matter. Companies eat up their promises all the time and rarely face any consequence. They'll introduce ads one way or another. 2) Sam Altman's tweets don't matter. They never matter. Tweets from any OpenAI employee are purely to pump engagement. If what they said had a sliver of substance we would have had AGI mid-2025. The whole 'war' is just to keep their brands mentioned on news and social media.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- glimshe 9mo agoAds aren't coming to Claude and neither is my business because I can't have a separate account with the same phone number...
- tizzzzz 9mo agoPerhaps he frequently tweets to divert public attention or cover something up?
- freejazz 9mo agoDishonest man dishonestly asks why someone else would be "dishonest"
- NoPicklez 9mo agoIt's one of those marketing stunts where they take a dig at another company, then a year or so later find themselves doing the same thing. Think of the Samsung headphone jack commercial.