zlacker

> Anthropic could have made this statement at any time, but they chose to do it when OpenAI says they are going to start showing ads, so view it in that context.

Obviously they did do it for that reason, but it does make sense. They've positioned themselves from day 1 as the AI company built on more values; that doesn't make them good but it's self-consistent. If, out of the blue earlier on when nobody was talking about ads in AI, they said "we're not going to put ads in AI", that would have been a Suspiciously Specific Denial: "our shirt saying we're not going to put ads in AI has people asking a lot of questions already answered by our shirt".

> Can you imagine someone in a boardroom saying, "Everyone, we can't do this. Sure it will make us a ton of money, but it's wrong!"

Yes. But that's not how you'd say it. "First of all, this would go against our established ethical principles, which you knew when you invested with us. Second, those ethical principles define our position in the market, which we should not abandon."