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Claude's new constitution

anthropic.com

1–10 of 743 posts

Re: Claude's new constitution

#2
I don't care about your "constitution" because it's just a PR way of implying your models are going to take over the world. They are not. They're tools and you as the company that makes them should stop the AGI rage bait and fearmongering. This "safety" narrative is bs, pardon my french.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#3
I don't understand what this is really about. Is this:

- A) legal CYA: "see! we told the models to be good, and we even asked nicely!"?

- B) marketing department rebrand of a system prompt

- C) a PR stunt to suggest that the models are way more human-like than they actually are

Really not sure what I'm even looking at. They say:

"The constitution is a crucial part of our model training process, and its content directly shapes Claude’s behavior"

And do not elaborate on that at all. How does it directly shape things more than me pasting it into CLAUDE.md?

Re: Claude's new constitution

#4
post #2

I don't care about your "constitution" because it's just a PR way of implying your models are going to take over the world. They are not. They're tools and you as the company that makes them should stop the AGI rage bait and fearmongering. This "safety" narrative is bs, pardon my french.

It's more or less formalizing the system prompt as something that can't just be tweaked willy nilly. I'd assume everyone else is doing something similar.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#5
post #2

I don't care about your "constitution" because it's just a PR way of implying your models are going to take over the world. They are not. They're tools and you as the company that makes them should stop the AGI rage bait and fearmongering. This "safety" narrative is bs, pardon my french.

>We treat the constitution as the final authority on how we want Claude to be and to behave—that is, any other training or instruction given to Claude should be consistent with both its letter and its underlying spirit. This makes publishing the constitution particularly important from a transparency perspective: it lets people understand which of Claude’s behaviors are intended versus unintended, to make informed choices, and to provide useful feedback. We think transparency of this kind will become ever more important as AIs start to exert more influence in society.

IDK, sounds pretty reasonable.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#6
post #3

I don't understand what this is really about. Is this: - A) legal CYA: "see! we told the models to be good, and we even asked nicely!"? - B) marketing department rebrand of a system prompt - C) a PR stunt to suggest that the models are way more human-like than they actually are Really not sure what I'm even looking at. They say: "The constitution is a crucial part of our model training process, and its content direct…

>We use the constitution at various stages of the training process. This has grown out of training techniques we’ve been using since 2023, when we first began training Claude models using Constitutional AI. Our approach has evolved significantly since then, and the new constitution plays an even more central role in training.

>Claude itself also uses the constitution to construct many kinds of synthetic training data, including data that helps it learn and understand the constitution, conversations where the constitution might be relevant, responses that are in line with its values, and rankings of possible responses. All of these can be used to train future versions of Claude to become the kind of entity the constitution describes. This practical function has shaped how we’ve written the constitution: it needs to work both as a statement of abstract ideals and a useful artifact for training.

>We use the constitution at various stages of the training process. This has grown out of training techniques we’ve been using since 2023, when we first began training Claude models using Constitutional AI. Our approach has evolved significantly since then, and the new constitution plays an even more central role in training.

>Claude itself also uses the constitution to construct many kinds of synthetic training data, including data that helps it learn and understand the constitution, conversations where the constitution might be relevant, responses that are in line with its values, and rankings of possible responses. All of these can be used to train future versions of Claude to become the kind of entity the constitution describes. This practical function has shaped how we’ve written the constitution: it needs to work both as a statement of abstract ideals and a useful artifact for training.

The linked paper on Constitutional AI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.08073

Re: Claude's new constitution

#7
post #3

I don't understand what this is really about. Is this: - A) legal CYA: "see! we told the models to be good, and we even asked nicely!"? - B) marketing department rebrand of a system prompt - C) a PR stunt to suggest that the models are way more human-like than they actually are Really not sure what I'm even looking at. They say: "The constitution is a crucial part of our model training process, and its content direct…

It's neither of those things. The answer is in your quoted sentence. "model training"

Re: Claude's new constitution

#9
post #7
post #3

I don't understand what this is really about. Is this: - A) legal CYA: "see! we told the models to be good, and we even asked nicely!"? - B) marketing department rebrand of a system prompt - C) a PR stunt to suggest that the models are way more human-like than they actually are Really not sure what I'm even looking at. They say: "The constitution is a crucial part of our model training process, and its content direct…

It's neither of those things. The answer is in your quoted sentence. "model training"

Right, I'm saying "model training" is vague enough that I have no idea what Claude actually does with this document.

Edit: This helps: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.08073

Re: Claude's new constitution

#10
post #3

I don't understand what this is really about. Is this: - A) legal CYA: "see! we told the models to be good, and we even asked nicely!"? - B) marketing department rebrand of a system prompt - C) a PR stunt to suggest that the models are way more human-like than they actually are Really not sure what I'm even looking at. They say: "The constitution is a crucial part of our model training process, and its content direct…

>We use the constitution at various stages of the training process. This has grown out of training techniques we’ve been using since 2023, when we first began training Claude models using Constitutional AI. Our approach has evolved significantly since then, and the new constitution plays an even more central role in training. >Claude itself also uses the constitution to construct many kinds of synthetic training data…

Ah I see, the paper is much more helpful in understanding how this is actually used. Where did you find that linked? Maybe I'm grepping for the wrong thing but I don't see it linked from either the link posted here or the full constitution doc.
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