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    Anthropic bans 'cruel' behavior against its Claude AI

    Saba Qamar•October 9, 2026• 2 min read
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    Anthropic bans 'cruel' behavior against its Claude AI
    Tech CoverageAman-e-Pakistan Digital Desk
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    “Anthropic on Thursday moved to bar users from treating its Claude AI system with needless cruelty, amid a growing philosophical debate over whether artificial intelligence can be conscious. The San Fra…”

    The San Francisco-based AI lab updated its usage policy to include “a prohibition on sustained and needless abusive or cruel behaviour toward our models.”“Claude’s ability to end these interactions will remain the primary enforcement mechanism,” the policy states.

    The updated policy does not explicitly cite so-called “model welfare,” the idea that AI systems might deserve types of protection usually reserved for living things, but Anthropic and its executives have openly entertained the concept. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Already last year, the company said it was giving Claude the ability to end conversations in rare, extreme cases of “persistently harmful or abusive user interactions.” Then in February, CEO Dario Amodei he was unsure whether AI models could be conscious.

    Key Story Takeaway

    "Stay connected with Aman-e-Pakistan for ongoing live reporting and verified investigative updates."

    “We don’t know if the models are conscious… But we’re open to the idea that it could be,” Amodei said. Science fiction and popular culture have been fascinated for decades by the boundary between technology and human intelligence, but asking whether AI is conscious may be the wrong question,, a general manager at Sparq, an Atlanta-based AI services provider.

    “Consciousness is a trap. We can’t prove it in each other. Debate it for AI and you go in circles,” Stakeman.

    S

    Written by Saba Qamar

    Aman-e-Pakistan Senior Journalist & Bureau Reporter

    Fact Checked & Verified

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