"Claude’s new constitution" by Zac Hatfield-Dodds

"Claude’s new constitution" by Zac Hatfield-Dodds

Author: LessWrong January 22, 2026 Duration: 11:56
LessWrong (Curated & Popular)
TechnologyCulturePhilosophySocietySociety & Culture
Read the constitution. Previously: 'soul document' discussion here.

We're publishing a new constitution for our AI model, Claude. It's a detailed description of Anthropic's vision for Claude's values and behavior; a holistic document that explains the context in which Claude operates and the kind of entity we would like Claude to be.

The constitution is a crucial part of our model training process, and its content directly shapes Claude's behavior. Training models is a difficult task, and Claude's outputs might not always adhere to the constitution's ideals. But we think that the way the new constitution is written—with a thorough explanation of our intentions and the reasons behind them—makes it more likely to cultivate good values during training.

In this post, we describe what we've included in the new constitution and some of the considerations that informed our approach.

We're releasing Claude's constitution in full under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Deed, meaning it can be freely used by anyone for any purpose without asking for permission.

What is Claude's Constitution?

Claude's constitution is the foundational document that both expresses and shapes who Claude is. It contains detailed explanations of the values we [...]

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Outline:

(01:14) What is Claudes Constitution?

(03:26) Our new approach to Claudes Constitution

(04:59) A brief summary of the new constitution

(09:14) Conclusion

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mLvxxoNjDqDHBAo6K/claude-s-new-constitution

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