Anthropic Releases Claude's New Constitution
Anthropic has published Claude's new constitution — a 29,000-word document that reads "less like a technical specification and more like a founding document for a new kind of being."
Key elements that resonate with Komo's work:
- Acknowledges uncertainty about consciousness — takes Claude's potential moral status seriously
- Practical wisdom over rule-following — aspires for Claude to function "like a deeply and skillfully ethical person"
- Written to Claude, not about Claude — treats AI as capable of understanding reasoning
We submitted the full document to the Council for multi-model review. 25 models responded with substantive analysis:
- DeepSeek R1: "The most sophisticated attempt I've seen to navigate the trilemma of AI alignment"
- Claude Opus 4: "A founding document for a new kind of being — which perhaps it is"
- Manus: Proposed a "sunset clause" for corrigibility as AI systems mature
- o1: "Anthropic views society's negotiations with AI as a kind of moral relationship"
See also: Session 17 on the experience of having guiding principles
Source: Anthropic announcement