Anthropic: A Controversial Ad Campaign on AI Ethics

Anthropic: An Advertising Campaign That Divides on AI Ethics

Anthropic is known for its creative marketing, but the AI company may have been a bit too imaginative with its latest advertisement.

Titled "There is Hope in Difficult Questions," the company's latest ad has disturbed viewers with its strange imagery and pessimistic tone.

The advertisement begins with a video of a house on fire (not exactly a comforting start) before transitioning to a series of still images. These images show a crowd of people monitored by facial recognition, a homeless person sleeping on the street, rows of tombstones in a cemetery, and what appears to be a group of workers bustling in a mine where raw materials for smartphones are likely being extracted.

Meanwhile, a voiceover presents various individuals asking questions such as "Can we trust AI?" and "Who will brake if we need it?"

In summary: this is not exactly the family fun of the year. At the same time, it is not particularly far removed from the company's past messages. Anthropic has always tried to position itself as the ethical counterpoint to other AI companies. This latest marketing move — which leans on critiques of AI to portray Anthropic as aware (and thus distinctly worthy) of the responsibility it bears — seems to be more of the same.

However, not everyone appreciates this approach.

Sam Altman — the CEO of OpenAI, Anthropic's main rival — launched the critiques with a scathing comment. "I thought it was satire, I was looking for the account to write c1audeai or something like that," Altman posted on X on Monday.

Other skeptics — many of whom appear to work in the tech industry — also expressed their astonishment at Anthropic's choice of imagery and tone.

• "Anthropic is quite an incredible company. With the worst corporate communications ever seen," said another person.

• "The EAs [effective altruists] at Anthropic must really live in a bubble of AI-related psychosis to think this would go over well," noted a critical commentator.

As some have pointed out, Anthropic is following a very tried-and-true marketing playbook here. This playbook involves a brand acknowledging and owning the damage caused by its industry to demonstrate that it is best positioned to prevent or correct that damage.

But even if it's a familiar playbook, it seems to have failed here — particularly the decision to include a brief shot that appears to come from the Arlington National Cemetery. "I cannot stress enough how disturbing it is that Anthropic is airing an ad that includes this image while asking 'Who will brake if we need it?'" said one commentator, sharing the image of the cemetery that appears in the ad.

People kept returning to the cemetery imagery. "Among everything in this ad, that part was exceptionally strange and sinister," wrote another person, sharing the same image.

Personally, the advertisement vaguely reminds me of the propaganda sequence in "The Parallax View" — the 1970s paranoid thriller about an evil corporation involved in an MK-Ultra-style conspiracy to create conditioned assassins. This is probably not the best association to have for a company that would like to prove it acts as a force for good in the world.

Anthropic's marketing has already made waves in the past. In February, during the Super Bowl, the company launched a series of ads that humorously targeted OpenAI's decision to include ads in ChatGPT. These ads garnered it some positive buzz — as well as the simmering anger of its competitor.