Anthropic reportedly invited law professors and democracy experts to discuss who should have final authority over Claude’s values, NBC News reported on October 18, 2026. Anthropic’s Constitution describes the company’s intentions for Claude’s values and behavior, and Anthropic says the document is the final authority on its vision for how Claude should behave. In that stated approach, Anthropic defines the intended guidance; outside experts provide feedback.
What Anthropic says Claude should prioritize
Claude’s Constitution gives this general order when priorities conflict:
- Broad safety
- Broad ethics
- Compliance with Anthropic’s guidelines
- Genuine helpfulness
Anthropic describes these as priorities for Claude’s intended behavior, with safety first and helpfulness fourth in the general order.
How outside experts contribute
In an announcement on January 22, 2026, Anthropic said it had sought feedback from external experts while writing the Constitution and expected to seek expert input on future versions. It named law, philosophy, theology and psychology among the fields that could inform that input.
That account describes consultation on the document. The reported invitation to law professors and democracy experts concerned a discussion about who should have final say over Claude’s values.
How the Constitution reaches Claude
Anthropic says it uses the Constitution at multiple stages of training and uses it to create synthetic training data, including rankings of possible responses. The document is written for Anthropic’s mainline, general-access Claude models; some specialized models do not fully fit it.
