Modi corrals Altman
Amodei, Pichai into AI summit hand-holding photo op, Rival CEOs refuse to touch as New Delhi markets AI via state choreography
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AI’s top leaders got corralled into holding hands. It made for a photo op for the ages.
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At India’s “AI Impact Summit” in New Delhi, the world’s most powerful AI executives were briefly reduced to props in a political stage direction: hold hands, raise arms, smile for the cameras. According to Business Insider, the choreographed photo op featured Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Brad Smith, DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei lined up onstage beside Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi—an experienced practitioner of the strongman-group-photo genre—linked hands with Pichai and Altman and hoisted their arms, a move he has used with other leaders including Joe Biden and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Business Insider notes. The executives, apparently trained in the ancient art of “read the room,” followed suit.
Except, memorably, the two men most associated with the current AI arms race. Altman and Amodei raised their arms without making contact, producing the kind of micro-gesture that the internet interprets with far more rigor than any government “AI ethics” communiqué. The moment went viral precisely because it punctured the intended message: that AI, a technology built from decentralized research, open publications, and competitive experimentation, is best introduced to the public via state ceremony and a single leader’s choreography.
Political power is exactly what many governments now want from AI: not merely productivity tools, but infrastructure for surveillance, content moderation, industrial policy, and national “strategic autonomy.” So the summit photo is not just cringe; it’s a mission statement. The state wants AI to look like a coordinated public project—preferably with a head of government at the center—rather than a chaotic ecosystem of rival labs, open-source communities, and entrepreneurs.
Business Insider points out that Altman and Amodei’s non-handshake comes after a recent advertising spat, with Anthropic mocking OpenAI for bringing ads to ChatGPT and Altman calling the jab “dishonest.” Amodei, a former OpenAI insider, left to co-found Anthropic in 2021, reportedly over disagreements about safety priorities and governance.
The “AI priesthood” is not unified, not even socially synchronized, yet governments are already selling the public a vision of managed, ceremonial AI—summits, committees, and photo ops—where legitimacy flows from proximity to politicians.
If AI is becoming a political religion, New Delhi provided the liturgy: hold hands for the sovereign, pretend the machine future is centrally planned, and hope nobody notices the rivals refusing communion.