By the Zonagirante.com team @spinning zone
Cover art by Zonagirante Studio
Artificial intelligence is no longer just a technical tool. It's in our conversations, our jobs, and increasingly, in decisions that affect lives. Amid this transformation, a company called Anthropic has published what many in the AI world consider an ethical and conceptual milestone: Claude's Constitution.
Who is Anthropic?
Anthropic is an artificial intelligence research company founded by former AI researchers concerned with creating models that are useful, safe, and ethical. They have developed Claude, a family of conversational models that compete with other advanced AIs on the market. Anthropic's philosophy puts safety and responsibility at the heart of AI development, not just the power or speed of the model.
What is Claude?
Claude is a next-generation conversational AI system created by Anthropic, designed to help people with a wide variety of tasks: writing texts, answering complex questions, generating ideas, or even assisting with creative and technical work. Unlike models that only respond based on statistical patterns, Claude incorporates deeper frameworks of reasoning about values and outcomes.
And what is this “Constitution”?
In January 2026, Anthropic published a document called Claude's Constitution. It's not a complicated or legalistic charter for users, but something more ambitious: a set of principles that guide both how AI is trained and how it behaves internally. The idea is similar to a political constitution, but applied to artificial intelligence.
Instead of relying solely on rigid lists of rules (which often produce robotic or overly restrictive responses), Anthropic's approach is to teach Claude why certain behaviors are right or wrong. This training method is called Constitutional AI and aims to have the AI reason morally and ethically as part of its training.
Claude's core values
Claude's Constitution establishes a hierarchy of values that the model must prioritize when making decisions and responding to users:
To be widely safe (broadly safe).
To be broadly ethical (broadly ethical).
Comply with Anthropic's guidelines (compliant with Anthropic's guidelines).
To be genuinely useful (genuinely helpful).
This order is not arbitrary: Anthropic wants Claude to first protect human safety and avoid harm, then to act ethically, and only then to concentrate his efforts on being useful and efficient.
The new version of the Constitution makes an explicit effort to go beyond simple rules (such as "not creating bioweapons or hate speech"), to offer reasons and context as to why those restrictions exist and how to balance values in complex situations.
Why does this matter?
This document differs from many other AI behavior guides because:
It is not written just for humans, but intended as a training text that Claude incorporates to modify his internal reasoning.
It was published under a Creative Commons CC0 license, which means that anyone can freely read, use, or study its principles.
It represents an effort to transparently show what an AI system "should value," something that goes beyond simple moderation rules and points to a kind of computational ethics.
Some commentators have noted that this approach could influence how other companies structure their own ethical frameworks for AI, especially in regulated contexts and debates about algorithmic responsibility.
Does it criticize other AI companies?
There are no direct attacks or explicit mentions of names like OpenAI, Google, or Meta in the Constitution. However, the approach does implicitly criticize traditional training methods that rely solely on direct human feedback or predefined rules.
Instead, Constitution advocates for a system in which AI learns values in a deeper and more reasoned way, which may contrast with the more pragmatic or market-driven approaches of other companies.
Who is this document addressed to?
The Constitution has several audiences:
For Claude himself: it's part of the training —the AI uses it to monitor itself and refine its responses.
For developers and academics: it offers transparency on how one of the most advanced models “thinks” about ethics and security.
For the global community: being freely published, it invites debates on AI ethics and governance.
This is particularly relevant at a time when countries and regulatory bodies are discussing new laws on AI and how to balance innovation with public safety.
🔗 Read Claude's full Constitution
If you're interested in the future of AI and how its fundamental values are being defined, you can read the full text here:
📄 Claude's Constitution (Anthropic)
📌 https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-new-constitution
🧠 In short
This document sets a more explicit and values-centered direction for AI: teaching models to reason ethically, not just to follow rules.
If the AI industry adopts similar frameworks, we could be seeing a new era in which machines are not only useful, but also more understandable, explainable, and aligned with shared human values.
