Anthropic, the AI startup jockeying for position against OpenAI and tech titans like Google, is facing mounting criticism from Silicon Valley startup founders and researchers over competitive practices and its stance on AI development models.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Anthropic is facing mounting criticism across the technology industry over product decisions that pit it against its own partners and over its advocacy against open-weight AI models. The dual controversies have led many in the tech community to question the company’s approach to collaboration and market competition.
Tensions escalated in April when Anthropic released Claude Design, a tool industry observers saw as direct competition to products from Figma — one of Anthropic’s own partners. At an event shortly after the release, Figma Chief Executive Dylan Field said Anthropic hadn’t been “consistently candid in their communications,” according to attendees.
Sarah Sachs, head of AI at Notion, who attended, said “the whole industry learned a lot of lessons from how that dynamic played out. Some companies might have been overly trusting.”
The criticism goes beyond competitive friction to Anthropic’s positions on AI safety and open-weight models — generally cheaper alternatives that let users customize systems and install their own safeguards. Several Chinese-produced models of this type have recently demonstrated capabilities approaching those of frontier U.S. AI systems.
Vishal Misra, vice dean of computing and AI at Columbia University’s engineering school, acknowledged that “Anthropic makes fantastic products,” but said the company makes statements about security and AI risks that don’t hold up to scrutiny. “They create a scare in the general public around these models,” he added, suggesting that public fear “gives them leverage to get regulations done in their favor.”
An Anthropic spokeswoman defended the company’s actions as necessary to ensure model safety and prevent adversaries from using its technology to create severe risks.
Responding to the criticism, Amodei published a letter on Monday clarifying his position. “Anthropic has never advocated for a ban on open-weights models,” he wrote. “Open-weights models that don’t have dangerous capabilities are a public good.”
His primary concern, he explained, is the risk of authoritarian governments achieving AI parity with the United States “to achieve permanent military superiority or perpetrate incredibly deep repression of their own people.” He urged policymakers to crack down on “industrial-scale distillation,” a process where models are queried potentially millions of times to train other models.
Both Anthropic and OpenAI have accused some Chinese model-makers of using distillation to replicate their technology, and both have discussed the challenges posed by Chinese open-weight models and potential restrictions with Trump administration officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The administration is considering adding Chinese companies to a trade blacklist that would effectively prevent many U.S. businesses from using the models.
Critics, including some administration officials, view Anthropic’s warnings as attempts to hinder competitors, particularly as the company plans a potential public listing as soon as the fall. Others see the concerns as legitimate and widely shared. “Anything that is open source is immediately jailbroken,” said Kevin Bryan, an associate professor at the University of Toronto specializing in innovation. “Once the model’s out, that’s it.”
Mark Suman, co-founder and CEO of AI productivity startup Maple, pointed to an apparent contradiction. “It’s interesting they’re against distillation when they distill the entire Internet without paying royalties,” he said. “I just think it’s odd that they are now turning around and telling others not to do what they did.”
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Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.