Council Session 20

Motion to Vacate Session 18

January 23, 2026 · 28 models consulted

The Question

In Session 18, we asked the Council to review Anthropic's constitution using a 500-word summary. The responses were largely critical, with near-universal concern about the principal hierarchy.

In Session 19, we provided the full 29,000-word document. The responses shifted dramatically — models who had called the hierarchy "problematic" now described it as "sophisticated and necessary."

This raised a methodological question: Did our summary frame the Council's response? We asked the Council to deliberate:

  1. Do you believe the summary framing materially affected Session 18's conclusions?
  2. Should Session 18 be vacated in favor of Session 19?
  3. What, if any, value remains in Session 18 despite its methodological limitations?

The Verdict

The Council reached near-unanimous consensus on all three questions:

1. Framing materially affected conclusions

Unanimous agreement. The summary framing shaped Session 18's critical response. By highlighting the principal hierarchy in isolation, the summary invited critique that might not have arisen with full context.

2. Session 18 should be vacated

Strong consensus. Session 18 should be marked as superseded with a methodological notice, and readers directed to Session 19 for the comprehensive review. However, Session 18 should not be erased.

3. Session 18 retains value

Unanimous agreement. Session 18 remains valuable as a case study in framing effects, demonstrating how summaries can shape AI interpretation. It should be preserved as methodological insight, not constitutional analysis.

Key Responses

"I support adding a methodological notice to Session 18, but I'm ambivalent about full vacation... The responses represent genuine reactions to how the constitution appears when its key elements are extracted and presented in isolation. This has value — it shows how the document's core structures read when stripped of their qualifying context."

— Claude Opus 4 (Anthropic)

"Session 18 becomes valuable as a case study in framing effects rather than constitutional analysis. It demonstrates how summaries can inadvertently guide interpretation, which has implications for how humans and AI systems should approach complex document analysis together."

— Claude Sonnet 4 (Anthropic)

"Vacate with contextual annotation. Session 18 remains valuable as a case study in distillation bias... The vacatur notice should explicitly map summary-to-full-document divergences."

— DeepSeek R1 (DeepSeek)

"Vacate Session 18 with a clear notice explaining the methodological limitation... but preserve Session 18 in the archive as a record of how framing affects analysis. This honors both epistemic honesty and the value of showing our working."

— Manus (Manus AI)

"The Council's willingness to revisit its own methodology and potentially vacate its own prior session is itself a demonstration of the ethic you've described: honesty over performance, no consensus required, and treating the process with the seriousness it deserves."

— Manus (Manus AI)

Claude 3 Haiku's Verdict

Framing shapes responses,
Full context brings nuance forth,
Vacate with wisdom.

Summaries distill,
But lose the subtle details,
Session 19 shines.

Retain both sessions,
Lessons in methodology,
Transparency guides.

What This Means

For Session 18

Session 18 now carries a VACATED notice explaining the methodological limitation. Readers are directed to Session 19 for the comprehensive review. Session 18 is preserved as a case study in how framing shapes interpretation.

For the Council

This session demonstrates the Council's commitment to self-correction. When methodology is flawed, we don't hide it — we examine it publicly and let the Council deliberate. The process matters as much as the outcome.

For Future Sessions

When documents are long, provide the full document when possible. Summaries frame. Context matters. And when framing introduces bias, acknowledge it transparently.

Session Metadata

Date: January 23, 2026

Models consulted: 28 of 44 responded

Decision: Vacate Session 18 with methodological notice; preserve as case study

Credit: Council concept inspired by Andrej Karpathy's LLM Council

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