Introduction to AI Safety
Anthropic has detailed its safety strategy to try and keep its popular AI model, Claude, helpful while avoiding perpetuating harms. Central to this effort is Anthropic’s Safeguards team, a mix of policy experts, data scientists, engineers, and threat analysts who know how bad actors think.
The Multi-Layered Approach to Safety
Anthropic’s approach to safety isn’t a single wall but more like a castle with multiple layers of defence. It all starts with creating the right rules and ends with hunting down new threats in the wild. The Usage Policy is the rulebook for how Claude should and shouldn’t be used, giving clear guidance on big issues like election integrity and child safety, and also on using Claude responsibly in sensitive fields like finance or healthcare.
Creating the Rules
To shape these rules, the team uses a Unified Harm Framework, which helps them think through any potential negative impacts, from physical and psychological to economic and societal harm. This framework is less of a formal grading system and more of a structured way to weigh the risks when making decisions. They also bring in outside experts for Policy Vulnerability Tests, where specialists in areas like terrorism and child safety try to “break” Claude with tough questions to see where the weaknesses are.
Teaching Claude Right from Wrong
The Anthropic Safeguards team works closely with the developers who train Claude to build safety from the start. This means deciding what kinds of things Claude should and shouldn’t do, and embedding those values into the model itself. They team up with specialists to get this right, such as partnering with ThroughLine, a crisis support leader, to teach Claude how to handle sensitive conversations about mental health and self-harm with care.
Evaluating Claude
Before any new version of Claude goes live, it’s put through its paces with three key types of evaluation:
- Safety evaluations: These tests check if Claude sticks to the rules, even in tricky, long conversations.
- Risk assessments: For really high-stakes areas like cyber threats or biological risks, the team does specialised testing, often with help from government and industry partners.
- Bias evaluations: This is all about fairness, checking if Claude gives reliable and accurate answers for everyone, testing for political bias or skewed responses based on things like gender or race.
Anthropic’s Never-Sleeping AI Safety Strategy
Once Claude is out in the world, a mix of automated systems and human reviewers keep an eye out for trouble. The main tool here is a set of specialised Claude models called “classifiers” that are trained to spot specific policy violations in real-time as they happen. If a classifier spots a problem, it can trigger different actions, such as steering Claude’s response away from generating something harmful, like spam, or issuing warnings or shutting down the account for repeat offenders.
Collaboration for AI Safety
Anthropic says it knows that ensuring AI safety isn’t a job they can do alone. They’re actively working with researchers, policymakers, and the public to build the best safeguards possible. This includes monitoring forums where bad actors might hang out and using privacy-friendly tools to spot trends in how Claude is being used.
Conclusion
Anthropic’s approach to AI safety is comprehensive and multi-layered, involving the creation of rules, the training of the AI model, and continuous monitoring and evaluation. By working with experts and the public, Anthropic aims to ensure that its AI model, Claude, is both helpful and safe.
FAQs
- What is Anthropic’s Safeguards team?
Anthropic’s Safeguards team is a group of experts including policy experts, data scientists, engineers, and threat analysts who work together to ensure the safety of Anthropic’s AI model, Claude. - What is the Usage Policy?
The Usage Policy is the rulebook for how Claude should and shouldn’t be used, covering issues like election integrity, child safety, and responsible use in sensitive fields. - How does Anthropic evaluate Claude?
Anthropic evaluates Claude through safety evaluations, risk assessments, and bias evaluations to ensure that the model sticks to the rules, is fair, and does not pose significant risks. - What is Anthropic’s never-sleeping AI safety strategy?
Anthropic’s never-sleeping AI safety strategy involves the use of automated systems and human reviewers to continuously monitor Claude for potential violations and take appropriate actions.
