Cold war or misunderstanding? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reacts to viral moment with Anthropic’s Amodei
Follow UsSam Altman said the viral fist gesture with Dario Amodei was just confusion, not rivalry.
The moment happened during a group photo with Narendra Modi and other global tech leaders at the AI summit.
The clip gained attention due to their past connection, as Amodei left OpenAI and later started Anthropic.
While India’s AI Impact Summit widely got attention for the technologies displayed in the event, one of the things that went viral recently was a video clip of Altman and Amodei. The moment happened during a symbolic group photograph with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top technology leaders, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta AI’s Alexandr Wang, Sarvam co‑founder Pratyush Kumar, and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis. While the photograph was taken, the cameras caught OpenAI chief Sam Altman and Anthropic boss Dario Amodei in an awkward gesture that quickly went viral. While others raised their joined hands, Altman and Amodei lifted their fists beside each other. The brief scene sparked playful speculation online, with many interpreting it as a sign of rivalry. Altman has now explained the moment was a simple case of confusion and not any sign of personal tension.
SurveyAltman was quick to address the buzz, as he later clarified that during the photo, he was unsure what gesture was expected. ‘I didn’t know what was happening. ‘I was sort of confused and didn’t know what I was supposed to do,’ he told PTI. He added that Prime Minister Modi had lifted his hand, which contributed to the mix-up. Altman even joked that he initially thought it was ‘the open clock’, highlighting that the awkward moment was far from intentional or adversarial.
The clip attracted attention partly because of the shared history between Altman and Amodei, and the recent feud between the two had just added fuel to the fire. Dario Amodei was the Vice President of Research at OpenAI from 2016 to 2021. He was the head of the team that developed GPT-2 and GPT-3 and was also instrumental in the popularity of generative AI.
However, he left the company in 2021 due to some disagreements about the company’s future and then founded his own company, Anthropic, where he is working on the Claude AI models. Their past connection often draws public interest whenever the two appear together, and the recent photo moment was no exception.
Also read: JioHotstar partners with OpenAI to roll out ChatGPT-powered voice and text search: How it works
Aside from the viral moment, Altman took the opportunity to share his thoughts on the increasing influence of AI on work and society through the summit platform. He recognised that AI will change the nature of work but also provide new opportunities, citing the influence of past technologies that created new sectors and job opportunities.
