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Anthropic bans abusive treatment of Claude, citing needless cruelty

Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, now prohibits prolonged, pointless cruelty toward its AI models, aimed at extreme cases. The new rules take effect November 12 and have sparked debate over whether AI can feel pain.

By Standard Topic. AI-generated from the reporting listed under Coverage. Published . Updated .

This story is no longer being updated. It reflects reporting up to .

What happened

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, has revised its usage policy to forbid sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward its AI models. The policy is meant to apply only in extreme cases where users repeatedly act cruelly toward the models with no discernible purpose. The rules take effect November 12.

Why it matters

The change has fueled a wider debate over whether AI systems can feel pain and whether they deserve moral consideration. Coverage notes that the policy also lets Claude end conversations in some situations.

Timeline

  1. Oct 12, 6:04 PM ET: Anthropic announced that it would ban users from being abusive or cruel to Claude, saying the policy applies only in extreme cases.
  2. Oct 13, 8:54 AM ET: Coverage reported that the update prohibits sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior and gives the model the ability to end some conversations, opening debate over machine consciousness.
  3. Oct 13, 6:41 PM ET: Anthropic confirmed the rules will take effect November 12 as debate over AI safeguards grows.

Coverage

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