‘I thought it was satire’: Sam Altman mocks Anthropic’s latest AI ad that’s getting widely blasted for being ‘dystopian marketing slop’
- Anthropic has a new ‘hard questions’ ad for Claude and AI
- Reactions to the short clip have been mixed
- OpenAI boss Sam Altman says the ad feels like satire
Anthropic has a new ad out for its Claude AI chatbot, and it ties into its Hard Questions project — an attempt to bring attention to some of the main concerns and hopes that people have about the future of AI. Will it take my job? Can it lead to new scientific discoveries? Why is there a new data center in my neighborhood?
You can see the short film below, which features voices “from real people” that Anthropic has spoken to. Alongside shots of burning buildings, lab researchers, and racks and racks of hard drives, we have ruminations over whether AI can be trusted and how it might affect communities, education, and what it means to be human.
Anthropic has boldly left the comments enabled on the video, and it’s fair to say there’s a mix of opinion: various posters have branded the clip as “dystopian marketing slop”, a sign of “dark times”, and “pretty horrifying”. One commenter points out that the final “keep thinking” tagline is a strange choice for a technology that generally makes us think less.
There are plenty of positive opinions too, with some calling the ad “profoundly beautiful”, “great”, and “thought-provoking”, and even “the greatest commercial I’ve ever seen” in one case. Quite a few YouTuber users in the comments are simply asking for more access to the latest Claude Fable AI model.
Questions and answers
i thought this was satire, kept looking for the handle to be spelled c1audeai or something https://t.co/4AVBA93Z27July 14, 2026
The ad has even caught the attention of Sam Altman, CEO of Anthropic rival OpenAI. His response to the clip was to say that he “thought this was satire”, though it’s worth remembering that he’s not the most neutral of observers. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was previously vice president of research at OpenAI.
What we can say for sure about the ad is that it’s addressing many of the issues that are in the public conversation right now when it comes to AI technology. Anthropic has also launched a Hard Questions web portal where you can listen to some of the conversations the company has had with people across the US.
The topics covered include the use of AI in medical diagnosis, safeguards around the misuse of AI, the resources needed to run data centers, how the technology might impact our critical thinking skills and creativity, which jobs might ultimately be replaced by AI, and what it’s going to be like for kids to grow up with AI.
Clearly this debate is going to go on and on across the years to come, but it does feel like the tension has never been greater between the hype and the backlash around AI. Big AI companies like Anthropic are going to have to work hard to keep users and governments on side as the technology becomes even more powerful and pervasive.
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