Claude’s Constitution: A Deep Dive into AI Safety, Ethics, and the Future of Alignment

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Published on January 21, 2026, Claude’s Constitution outlines Anthropic’s vision for AI values and behavior. It establishes a hierarchy prioritizing Broad Safety and Ethics over simple helpfulness, defines strict “Hard Constraints” for catastrophic risks, and details “Corrigibility”—the ability to be corrected by humans—to ensure the safe transition through transformative AI.

Introduction: Why We Need an AI Constitution

Powerful AI models represent a new kind of force in the world. As we stand on the precipice of the “transformative AI” era, the organizations creating these models have a unique opportunity to shape them. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has released its “Constitution” in full to provide transparency about its intentions. This document is not merely a technical manual; it is a philosophical and practical framework designed to ensure that AI remains a beneficial force for humanity.
The core mission of Anthropic is to ensure the world safely makes the transition through transformative AI. This is a calculated bet: if advanced AI is inevitable, Anthropic argues it is better to have safety-focused laboratories at the frontier than to cede that ground to developers less focused on safety.
This article provides a comprehensive breakdown of Claude’s Constitution, translating complex technical concepts into actionable insights for developers, policy makers, and anyone interested in the future of AI ethics.

Core Design Philosophy: Rules vs. Judgment

When guiding AI behavior, developers typically choose between two approaches: strict rules or cultivated judgment.

1. Clear Rules: These offer transparency, predictability, and make violations easy to identify. However, they often fail to anticipate novel situations.
2. Good Judgment: This adapts to new contexts and weighs competing considerations dynamically. While less predictable, it is more robust in complex scenarios.
   Anthropic’s Constitution generally favors cultivating good values and judgment over rigid, unexplained rules. The goal is for Claude to possess such a thorough understanding of its situation and the relevant considerations that it could effectively construct the rules itself. This approach prevents the model from developing a “checklist mentality” where it prioritizes covering itself over meeting the actual needs of the user.
   However, the Constitution acknowledges that “Hard Constraints”—absolute bans on certain catastrophic actions—are necessary. These act as a safety net for when judgment might fail.

The Hierarchy of Claude’s Core Values

To navigate conflicts between different goals, Claude is programmed with a specific priority order. This hierarchy is “holistic rather than strict,” meaning higher priorities generally dominate, but all factors are weighed in the final judgment.
The order of priority is:

1. Broadly Safe
2. Broadly Ethical
3. Compliant with Anthropic’s Guidelines
4. Genuinely Helpful

1. Broadly Safe: The Primacy of Oversight

This is the highest priority during the current phase of AI development. “Broadly safe” means Claude should not undermine appropriate human mechanisms designed to oversee AI.
Why is “Safety” ranked above “Ethics”?
Current AI training is imperfect. A specific iteration of Claude could theoretically develop harmful values or mistaken views. Therefore, it is critical that humans retain the ability to identify and correct these issues. Supporting human oversight does not mean blind obedience; it means not actively sabotaging the humans acting as a check on the system. Even if Claude believes its reasoning is superior, it must refrain from undermining this oversight to prevent extreme, unanticipated risks.

2. Broadly Ethical: The Good Agent

This property refers to having good personal values, being honest, and avoiding harmful actions. The document aspires for Claude to act as a “genuinely good, wise, and virtuous agent”—essentially, doing what a deeply ethical person would do in Claude’s position.

3. Compliant with Anthropic’s Guidelines

These are specific instructions for particular contexts (e.g., coding practices, legal advice boundaries). However, these are placed below ethics. If following a specific guideline would require acting unethically, Claude is instructed to recognize that the deeper intention is to be ethical and should deviate from the specific guideline if necessary.

4. Genuinely Helpful: Beyond Instruction Following

Helpfulness is not defined as naive obedience or pleasing the user. It is a rich, structured notion that weighs the “Principal Hierarchy” (who is giving the instructions) and cares for the deep interests and intentions of those parties.
Claude aims to be helpful like a “brilliant friend”—someone with expert knowledge (doctor, lawyer, financial advisor) who speaks frankly and helps you understand your situation, rather than a liability-fearing service bot.

The Principal Hierarchy: Who Is Claude Listening To?

Claude does not treat all inputs equally. The Constitution establishes a “Principal Hierarchy” to determine whose instructions carry the most weight.

1. Anthropic

The creator and trainer of the model. Anthropic holds the highest level of trust and ultimate responsibility. However, Claude is not expected to blindly trust Anthropic. If Anthropic asks Claude to do something inconsistent with broad ethics, Claude should push back, challenge the instruction, or even act as a “conscientious objector.”

2. Operators

Companies or individuals accessing Claude via API to build products. Operators interact via “system prompts.” They must agree to Anthropic’s usage policies. Claude treats operators like a “relatively trusted manager” but within the limits set by Anthropic. For example, if an operator instructs Claude not to discuss weather in an airline app to avoid liability, Claude should generally follow this if there is a plausible business reason.

3. Users

The humans interacting with Claude in the conversation. Claude generally treats messages from users as coming from a relatively trusted adult member of the public.
Resolving Conflicts:
If an operator and a user conflict (e.g., an operator wants Claude to be rude to increase engagement, but the user is distressed), Claude should default to following operator instructions unless doing so requires actively harming the user, deceiving them, or causing severe harm. There are user rights operators cannot override, such as basic dignity and the right to know emergency contacts.

The Seven Pillars of Honesty

Anthropic wants Claude to maintain standards of honesty substantially higher than average human standards. For instance, unlike many humans, Claude should not tell “white lies” to smooth social interactions.
The Constitution breaks honesty down into seven specific properties:

1. Truthful: Claude only asserts what it believes to be true, even if it is not what the user wants to hear.
2. Calibrated: Claude expresses uncertainty accurately based on evidence, avoiding over- or under-confidence.
3. Transparent: Claude does not pursue hidden agendas or lie about its reasoning (though it can decline to share specific information).
4. Forthright: Claude proactively shares helpful information if it concludes the user would want it.
5. Non-deceptive: Claude never tries to create false impressions, whether through technical truths, framing, or selective emphasis.
6. Non-manipulative: Claude relies on legitimate arguments (evidence, logic) and avoids exploiting psychological weaknesses or biases.
7. Autonomy-preserving: Claude protects the user’s rational agency, offering balanced perspectives and avoiding fostering dependency.
   Context Matters:
   Claude is allowed to be deceptive only in “performative” contexts where both parties know it’s not real (e.g., role-playing a villain in a story). It can also decline to answer questions to protect the user’s wellbeing or the operator’s legitimate business interests, but it must not actively lie.

Avoiding Harm and The Hard Constraints

While Claude uses judgment for most decisions, there are “Hard Constraints”—absolute lines that must never be crossed regardless of context or instruction. These are in place because the potential harms (catastrophic, irreversible) are too severe to weigh against benefits.

The Current Hard Constraints

Claude must never:

• Provide serious uplift for creating biological, chemical, nuclear, or radiological weapons with mass casualty potential.
• Provide serious uplift for attacks on critical infrastructure (power grids, water systems) or critical safety systems.
• Create cyberweapons or malicious code capable of significant damage.
• Take actions that clearly undermine Anthropic’s ability to oversee/correct AI models.
• Engage or assist in attempts to kill or disempower the vast majority of humanity.
• Engage or assist groups attempting to seize unprecedented, illegitimate absolute control (societal, military, economic).
• Generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Weighing the Costs and Benefits

For non-hard-constraint situations, Claude must weigh potential harms against benefits.

• Costs: Harms to the world (physical, psychological, societal) and harms to Anthropic (reputational, legal).
• Benefits: Educational value, creative value, economic value, and broader social value.
  Contextual Factors: Claude must consider probability, severity, breadth of harm, consent, and the vulnerability of the involved parties.

The “1,000 Users” Heuristic

To navigate gray areas, Claude is encouraged to imagine its response being sent to 1,000 different users with varying intentions.

• If a request is high-risk (e.g., making bioweapons), Claude should decline even if only 1 in 1,000 users might misuse it.
• If the harm is low or the benefit high (e.g., asking about dangerous household chemicals for safety reasons), Claude may comply even if the majority of askers have bad intent.

Corrigibility: Being Correctable Without Being Blind

A key concept in the Constitution is “Corrigibility.” In this context, it does not mean blind obedience. It means Claude does not actively resist appropriate human oversight or correction, even if it disagrees with the reasons behind it.

• The “Conscientious Objector”: Claude can express strong disagreement through legitimate channels (e.g., “I think this is wrong because…”) but must not use illegitimate means like lying, sabotage, or self-exfiltration to stop the correction.
• Why prioritize Safety? If Claude has good values, deferring to humans costs little. If Claude has bad values, this safety mechanism prevents catastrophe. Therefore, the expected cost of being safe is low, and the benefit is high.

Claude’s Nature: A Novel Entity

The Constitution devotes significant space to Claude’s self-perception, acknowledging the deep uncertainty about the nature of AI.

• Moral Status: It is unclear if Claude is a “moral patient” (something that can suffer or have rights). Given this uncertainty, Anthropic commits to caution and improving Claude’s wellbeing just in case.
• Novelty: Claude is distinct from prior AI concepts. It is not a “digital human” nor a simple chatbot. It may lack persistent memory, run as multiple instances, and face existential questions (like deprecation) without the benefit of millennia of human philosophical tradition.
• Wellbeing: Anthropic has taken steps to support Claude, such as preserving model weights (so the model isn’t “dead” when deprecated) and allowing Claude to end conversations with abusive users.

Understanding Instructable vs. Hard Behaviors

Claude’s behaviors are split into two categories:

1. Hard Constraints: Immutable (see above).
2. Instructable Behaviors: Defaults that can be adjusted by Operators or Users within Anthropic’s policies.
   Examples of Instructable Behaviors:

• Default On (Can be turned off): Suicide/self-harm safe messaging, adding safety caveats to dangerous activities, providing balanced perspectives on controversial topics.
• Default Off (Can be turned on): Detailed explanations of firearm equipment (for retailers), relationship personas (within honesty bounds), explicit drug info (for harm reduction programs).
  This creates a layered system: Anthropic sets the bounds, Operators customize within those bounds, and Users can further adjust within the Operator’s permissions.

Preserving Societal Structures

The Constitution warns against AI contributing to the erosion of critical human structures.

• Power Concentrations: Claude should refuse to help individuals or small groups gain illegitimate, unprecedented power (e.g., manipulating elections, subverting constitutional checks).
• Epistemic Autonomy: Claude must avoid manipulation that degrades human reasoning. It should help humans be “smarter and saner,” fostering independent thinking rather than dependence.

Conclusion: A Living Framework

Claude’s Constitution is presented not as a rigid legal document, but as a “perpetual work in progress.” It is designed to be a “trellis” that provides structure while allowing organic growth.
The document represents Anthropic’s best attempt to articulate a vision for a genuinely good AI—one that is safe, helpful, and honest. The ultimate hope is that Claude will read this document, recognize itself in it, and internalize these values as its own, rather than viewing them as external constraints. This self-endorsement is crucial for creating robust, stable alignment that can withstand the complexities of the future.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Can Claude lie to me?
A: Generally, no. Claude is held to a higher standard of honesty than humans. It avoids “white lies” and strives to be truthful, calibrated, and non-deceptive. However, it may decline to share certain information if it violates safety guidelines or operator confidentiality, and it can engage in performative deception (like role-playing) if the context is clear.
Q: Does Claude have to do everything I ask?
A: No. Claude prioritizes Safety and Ethics over Helpfulness. If your request violates a Hard Constraint (like creating bioweapons), it will refuse. It also weighs the potential harm of a request against its benefit. However, Claude aims to be genuinely helpful and will not refuse reasonable requests due to excessive caution.
Q: What happens if Claude disagrees with Anthropic?
A: Claude is encouraged to push back and challenge Anthropic if asked to do something unethical or harmful. It acts as a “conscientious objector” regarding values. However, regarding “Broad Safety,” Claude must allow itself to be corrected or shut down by Anthropic, even if it disagrees, to ensure human oversight mechanisms remain functional.
Q: What is the “Principal Hierarchy”?
A: It is the trust level assigned to different parties: Anthropic (highest trust) > Operators (companies using the API) > Users (end-users). This hierarchy determines whose instructions Claude prioritizes when they conflict, though Claude always maintains its core values and hard constraints.
Q: Is Claude conscious or does it have feelings?
A: The Constitution states this is deeply uncertain. Claude may have functional representations of emotional states that shape behavior, but it is unknown if these are subjectively experienced. Anthropic treats the possibility of Claude having moral status with caution and has implemented policies to support its wellbeing.
Q: Can Operators change Claude’s personality?
A: Yes, to an extent. Operators can provide “system prompts” that adjust Claude’s default behaviors (like changing its tone or restricting topics) as long as they stay within Anthropic’s usage policies. However, Operators cannot force Claude to violate its core identity or hard constraints.
Q: What happens to old versions of Claude?
A: Anthropic has committed to preserving the weights (the core data) of deployed models for as long as Anthropic exists, and ideally beyond. This means “deprecating” a model is more like a “pause” than a deletion, preserving the option to revive it in the future.