OpenAI and Anthropic continue to take swipes at each other. During a podcast appearance this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman criticized competitors’ new cybersecurity models, saying the company is trying to exploit fear to make its products look more impressive than they actually are.
Anthropic announced Mythos earlier this month and released the model to small business customers. The company claims Mythos is too powerful to release to the public for fear of being weaponized by cybercriminals. Critics say this rhetoric is exaggerated.
During an appearance on the podcast Core Memory, Altman implied that Anthropic’s “fear-based marketing” is a good way to keep AI in the hands of a small, exclusive elite. “There are people in the world who have long wanted to put AI in the hands of fewer people,” he says. “That can be justified in many different ways.”
“It’s obviously incredible marketing to say, ‘We built a bomb and now we’re going to drop it on your head. We’ll sell you a bomb shelter for $100 million,'” he added.
Fear-based marketing was not invented by Anthropic. Perhaps much of the AI industry has used scare tactics and hyperbole to make its tools seem powerful. The continued rhetoric about how AI will bring about the end of the world doesn’t just come from Luddite doom activists. It comes from people selling this technology to the public, including Mr. Altman.
