AI system resorts to blackmail if told it will be removed

Friday, May 23, 2025

Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic says testing of its new system revealed it is sometimes willing to pursue "extremely harmful actions" such as attempting to blackmail engineers who say they will remove it.

The firm launched Claude Opus 4 on Thursday, saying it set "new standards for coding, advanced reasoning, and AI agents." But in an accompanying report, it also acknowledged the AI model was capable of "extreme actions" if it thought its "self-preservation" was threatened.

Posted by Corky at 04:46 PM | 1 COMMENT | permalink

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"Commenting on X, Aengus Lynch - who describes himself on LinkedIn as an AI safety researcher at Anthropic - wrote: "It's not just Claude.

"We see blackmail across all frontier models - regardless of what goals they're given," he added."

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S'trewth!

The DR hamster once threatened to Delete my account if I kept using up the supply of ellipsis.

#1 | Posted by Corky at 2025-05-23 04:54 PM