Overview
- The published document ranks priorities for Claude as broadly safe, broadly ethical, compliant with Anthropic’s guidelines, and then genuinely helpful.
- It instructs the model to push back or refuse requests that conflict with those principles, even if the request comes from Anthropic.
- Anthropic says the constitution applies to models offered to the general public, while specialized deployments such as U.S. military uses may not follow the same training.
- The company’s rationale is to teach reasons rather than only rules so Claude can exercise judgment and generalize ethical behavior in new contexts.
- StartupHub.ai reports the text was released under a CC0 license to enable reuse and encourage wider industry adoption.