Scaling Laws Rapid Response Pod on The Implications of Claude's New Constitution
Jan 22, 2026
Jakub Kraus engages Alan Z. Rozenshtein, an Associate Professor of Law, and Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow, to dissect Anthropic's new constitution for Claude. They explore the philosophical underpinnings of AI governance and the document's guiding principles, aimed at ethical and safe AI development. The duo debates the concept of AI as a potential moral being and the implications of market dynamics on model choices. Frazier advocates for clear consumer metrics, while Rozenshtein emphasizes the need for virtue ethics in AI alignment.
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Constitution As Training Blueprint
- Anthropic's
From Soul Document To Public Constitution
- Amanda Askell publicly confirmed Anthropic used an internal 'soul' document that guided Claude's behavior.
- The released constitution is a cleaned and expanded version of that internal guidance.
Four Tiered Behavioral Priorities
- Anthropic frames Claude's goals as four prioritized values: broadly safe, broadly ethical, compliant with Anthropic guidelines, and genuinely helpful.
- Those priorities form a hierarchy that resolves conflicts between objectives.
