Anthropic CEO Dario Amedei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were, however, for some reason, placed right next to each other on stage — and the acrimonious rivals promptly refused the gesture.
Rage quit OpenAI
Not only are their companies at loggerheads in the race for frontier AI, but Amodei basically rage quit OpenAI in 2021 over governance and safety concerns, starting Anthropic with other OpenAI alumni as more or less the anti-OpenAI company, with a stronger focus on those themes.
Now, Amodei has grown Anthropic into the second largest pure AI lab with a valuation of $380 billion, trailing only OpenAI’s expected 850 billion.
Not better with Super Bowl ad
This was further exacerbated by Anthropic’s recent Super Bowl ad where they came out strongly against the advertising in AI chatbots that OpenAI has embraced.
Placing the two on stage together has instead turned the happy photo-op into more of a show of heated rivalry, but both seemed to agree on the theme — just not on each other.
The story is currently on top of r/Singularity, r/ChatGPT, r/OpenAI, and is featured in major publications like CNBC and Reuters, further highlighting the division rahter than the unity the organizers sought.