Anthropic Publishes Revised Constitution for Claude AI

Anthropic has released a new version of the foundational document guiding its AI assistant, Claude, announced on its website. The revised Constitution expands on the company’s vision for how Claude should behave and make decisions, emphasizing transparency and the reasoning behind its values.

According to Anthropic, the Constitution defines four main priorities for Claude: being broadly safe, broadly ethical, compliant with company guidelines, and genuinely helpful. These categories are intended to guide the model’s responses and ensure it acts consistently with Anthropic’s principles during training and operation. The company describes the document as both a statement of ideals and a practical tool used in model development.

The new version replaces the earlier list-based structure with more detailed explanations and reasoning behind each principle. It also introduces “hard constraints” for sensitive topics, such as prohibiting the model from assisting in bioweapon development. Claude uses the Constitution to generate synthetic training data and evaluate its own outputs against the stated values.

A section of the document discusses Claude’s nature, acknowledging uncertainty about whether advanced AI systems could possess consciousness or moral status. Anthropic states that it considers these questions open and relevant as AI capabilities continue to evolve.