A photo op at a global AI summit in New Delhi turned awkward as rival CEOs Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands.
NEW DELHI: A photo opportunity at a global artificial intelligence summit turned awkward as rival CEOs Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands.
The moment, captured on video during the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, rapidly spread on social media.
Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and Amodei, whose company Anthropic is known for its Claude chatbot, stood beside each other on stage.
They were flanked by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian AI startup founder Pratyush Kumar in a line with other tech leaders including Google’s Sundar Pichai.
As cameras snapped, all raised their arms in a chain, hand-in-hand, except for Altman and Amodei.
“This is so hilarious. Nothing can make Sam and Dario hold hands, not even the Prime Minister of India!” wrote X user Yuchen Jin.
Amodei is a former vice president of research at OpenAI who left in early 2021 to co-found Anthropic.
The two have been vocal in their criticism of each other’s business models and philosophies.
Indian lawmaker Milind Deora also took a dig at the pair on social media platform X.
“Everyone else locked hands. @ChatGPTapp and @claudeai kept it strictly professional,” he wrote along with a winking face emoji.
“That awkward moment when Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands,” wrote Madhav Chanchani, co-founder of tech media platform The Arc.
“Instead they raised their fists.”
