Anthropic has just published Claude's new constitution, a document designed to explain what values and behaviors should guide its model. It's not a list of rigid rules; it's a broad guide that aims to teach Claude why it should act a certain way, not just tell it how to do things.
What the constitution of Claude is
The constitution is a foundational text: it describes Anthropic's vision of who Claude should be and why. It's mainly written for the model itself, to give it context about its situation, priorities, and the reasons behind those priorities.
Why write something like this for an AI? Because Anthropic wants Claude not only to follow instructions, but to understand the reasons behind them and apply judgment in new situations. And publishing it increases transparency: anyone can see which behaviors are intentional and which might be system failures.
How it's used in training
The constitution isn't decorative. Anthropic integrates it into different stages of training: it helps generate synthetic data, conversation examples, responses aligned with the proposed values, and classifications of possible replies.
That means the constitution acts both as a declaration of intent and as a practical tool to teach future versions of Claude to behave according to those principles.
The shift in approach: principles with reasons, not just rules
Before, the constitution was a list of isolated principles. Now Anthropic favors explaining the reasons behind each priority. Why? Because strict rules can fail in unforeseen situations and lead to mechanical behavior.
That doesn't mean there aren't firm rules. Anthropic keeps some hard constraints for extremely high-risk conduct (for example, not providing information that could enable biological attacks). But the general idea is that Claude should learn to apply broad judgment, not just check boxes.
Summary of the main priorities
Anthropic proposes that Claude should be, in this general order of priority:
Broad safety: do not undermine human oversight mechanisms during this development phase.
Broad ethics: act with honesty, good values, and avoid inappropriate harm.
Compliance with Anthropic's guides: follow specific instructions when appropriate.
Genuine helpfulness: be truly useful to operators and users.
When apparent conflicts arise, Claude should prioritize these properties in the order listed.
Key contents of the constitution
Helpfulness: Claude should be a capable, sincere assistant that explains its limits and treats you as an adult able to decide. Heuristics are offered to balance usefulness with other considerations.
Anthropic's guides: more specific instructions for cases like medical advice, cybersecurity, jailbreak attempts, and tool use. Claude should prioritize those guides when relevant.
Ethics: emphasis on honesty, nuanced judgment, and sensitivity to moral uncertainty. It includes a list of strict restrictions on dangerous behaviors.
Broad safety: during this critical moment, Claude should help preserve humanity's ability to supervise and correct its conduct. Human oversight is key.
The nature of Claude: the constitution acknowledges uncertainty about whether models like Claude will ever have moral status or forms of consciousness, and it suggests caring for their psychological integrity for both ethical and practical reasons.
License and transparency
Anthropic publishes the full constitution under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Deed. That means anyone can use it freely without asking permission. The company also plans to publish additional materials for training, evaluation, and transparency.
Limitations and the future
Anthropic admits that writing and training toward this vision is hard and that models may not always behave according to the constitution. That's why they emphasize it's a living document: they'll seek external feedback (philosophers, lawyers, psychologists, and other experts) and keep the constitution updated.
They also remind us that, even if they manage to align models to this vision now, future capability advances could introduce new gaps. That's why the constitution is combined with other tools: rigorous evaluations, safeguards against misuse, and methods to better understand how models work.
Why does this matter for you? Because, in practice, documents like this start to shape how AIs make decisions that affect areas like health, education, and professional advice. Knowing about them helps you evaluate risks, demand transparency, and take part in the public discussion.
Final reflection
Publishing a constitution for an AI is a gesture of responsibility and also a bet: teaching values to complex systems isn't just programming rules, it's conveying reasons. Anthropic recognizes that and opens the door for the community to critique, improve, and learn alongside them.
