Anthropic's newest ad is creeping people out

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/14/anthropics-newest-ad-is-creeping-people-out/

by gnabgib • 4 days ago

43 8 4 days ago

rdtsc• 4 days ago

Did they use Claude to generate the idea? Sounds like an AI hallucination spiral. “Yes, we’ll show a few hundred gravestones at Arlington cemetery and talk about hard questions”. I can see Claude writing that.

Who’s gonna hit the brakes if we need to?’” said one commenter, sharing the cemetery image that appears in the ad.

A human not captured by AI psychosis should review their PR comms! First it was the “some models are so dangerous government should restrict them”. Then, the dead soldiers commercial. What is going on at Anthropic? Are they getting desperate because of Kimi K3 or something?

verall2• 4 days ago

It was a good ad, because it was scary but hopeful, and I think that's how they want people to view their company?

Trying to make claude come off as human and friendly is never going to work in an ad, it would be huge uncanny valley.

So may as well try to scare people, might help juice the ipo a tiny bit from clueless people

bmitc• 4 days ago

The scary part wasn't that problems exist. It's that they pose themselves as the people, company, and tools to solve them.

verall2• 4 days ago

Yes, I think that is the idea - AI is scary to most normal people, so the ad goes, "yes it's scary, but we're, uh, smart? It will be okay..."

watwut• 4 days ago

The issues ads show are all about human CEO projects. "Claude" is not trying to create surveillance dystopia, Thiel, Karp and the rest are. Claude is just a tool - a tool Anthropic is creating and selling for that purpose.

Claude is not trying to worsen workers conditions. Anthropic as a company has that as their primary selling point.

claw-el• 4 days ago

“[T]he EAs [effective altruists] at anthropic really must be living in a bubble of ai psychosis to think this would go down well,” a critical poster remarked.

My first reaction to the ad is, this feels very much like a messiah complex… like… SBF…

ZeroGravitas• 4 days ago

Is the "who is going to step in" quote over the image of the (military?) headstones with American flags supposed to invoke the thought of the American government being a global AI policeman?

xg15• 3 days ago

My first impression after viewing was that this is less "owning the harms" and more simple "leading and pacing".

Note how the voiceovers start with hard, even fundamental criticism of AI, including "why do we need this at all?". But then over the course of the video, the criticism becomes ever more narrow and "nuanced", before straight up turning into "can AI do X for me?" questions thay could have been grabbed right from the ChatGPT homepage.

If that's what Anthropic sees as "hope", it's probably more hope for itself...

Anthropic's newest ad is creeping people out

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