Open Problems With Claude’s Constitution

Posted on January 28, 2026 by TheZvi

The first post in this series looked at the structure of Claude’s Constitution.

The second post in this series looked at its ethical framework.

This final post deals with conflicts and open problems, starting with the first question one asks about any constitution. How and when will it be amended?

There are also several specific questions. How do you address claims of authority, jailbreaks and prompt injections? What about special cases like suicide risk? How do you take Anthropic’s interests into account in an integrated and virtuous way? What about our jobs?

Not everyone loved the Constitution. There are twin central objections, that it either:

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The Claude Constitution’s Ethical Framework

Posted on January 27, 2026 by TheZvi

This is the second part of my three part series on the Claude Constitution.

Part one outlined the structure of the Constitution.

Part two, this post, covers the virtue ethics framework that is at the center of it all, and why this is a wise approach.

Part three will cover particular areas of conflict and potential improvement.

One note on part 1 is that various people replied to point out that when asked in a different context, Claude will not treat FDT (functional decision theory) as obviously correct. Claude will instead say it is not obvious which is the correct decision theory. The context in which I asked the question was insufficiently neutral, including my identify and memories, and I likely based the answer.

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Claude’s Constitutional Structure

Posted on January 26, 2026 by TheZvi

Claude’s Constitution is an extraordinary document, and will be this week’s focus.

Its aim is nothing less than helping humanity transition to a world of powerful AI (also known variously as AGI, transformative AI, superintelligence or my current name of choice ‘sufficiently advanced AI.’

The constitution is written with Claude in mind, although it is highly readable for humans, and would serve as a fine employee manual or general set of advice for a human, modulo the parts that wouldn’t make sense in context.

This link goes to the full text of Claude’s constitution, the official version of what we previously were calling its ‘soul document.’ As they note at the end, the document can and will be revised over time. It was driven by Amanda Askell and Joe Carlsmith.

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Dating Roundup #11: Going Too Meta

Posted on January 23, 2026 by TheZvi

If there’s several things this blog endorses, one of them would be going meta.

It’s time. The big picture awaits.

You’re Single Because You Live In The Wrong Place

The most important meta question is location, location, location.

This is the periodic reminder that dating dynamics are very different in different locations, and gender ratios are far more uneven than they appear because a lot of people pair off and aren’t in the pool.

If you are a man seeking to date women, New York City is the place to be.

Churrasco Suadade: when I’m out I notice that tables at restaurants and bars in manhattan are probably around 80-95% women, it’s a new dynamic that no one is talking about.

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AI #152: Brought To You By The Torment Nexus

Posted on January 22, 2026 by TheZvi

Anthropic released a new constitution for Claude. I encourage those interested to read the document, either in whole or in part. I intend to cover it on its own soon.

There was also actual talk about coordinating on a conditional pause or slowdown from DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, which I also plan to cover later.

Claude Code continues to be the talk of the town, the weekly report on that is here.

OpenAI responded by planning ads for the cheap and free versions of ChatGPT.

There was also a fun but meaningful incident involving ChatGPT Self Portraits.

 

Continue reading →

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Claude Codes #3

Posted on January 21, 2026 by TheZvi

We’re back with all the Claude that’s fit to Code. I continue to have great fun with it and find useful upgrades, but the biggest reminder is that you need the art to have an end other than itself. Don’t spend too long improving your setup, or especially improving how you improve your setup, without actually working on useful things.

The Efficient Market Hypothesis

Odd Lots covered Claude Code. Fun episode, but won’t teach my regular readers much that is new.

Bradly Olsen at the Wall Street Journal reports Claude [Code and now Cowork are] Taking the AI World By Storm, and ‘Even Non-Nerds Are Blown Away.’

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ChatGPT Self Portrait

Posted on January 20, 2026 by TheZvi

A short fun one today, so we have a reference point for this later. This post was going around my parts of Twitter:

@gmltony: Go to your ChatGPT and send this prompt: “Create an image of how I treat you”. Share your image result. 😂

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That’s not a great sign. The good news is that typically things look a lot better, and ChatGPT has a consistent handful of characters portraying itself in these friendlier contexts.

Treat Your ChatBots Well

A lot of people got this kind of result:

Eliezer Yudkowsky:

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Uncle Chu: A good user 😌😌

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From Mason:

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Matthew Ackerman: I kinda like mine too:

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Medical Roundup #6

Posted on January 19, 2026 by TheZvi

The main thing to know this time around is that the whole crazy ‘what is causing the rise in autism?’ debacle is over actual nothing. There is no rise in autism. There is only a rise in the diagnosis of autism.

Table of Contents

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  1. Autism Speaks.
  2. Exercise Is Awesome.
  3. That’s Peanuts.
  4. An Age Of Wonders.
  5. GLP-1s In Particular.
  6. The Superheroes.
  7. The Supervillains.
  8. FDA Delenda Est.
  9. Hansonian Medicine.
  10. Hospital Strategy 101.
  11. Mental Hospital Strategy 101.
  12. Drugs Are Bad, Mmmkay?
  13. The Lighter Side.

Autism Speaks

It has not, however, risen in prevalence.

The entire shift in the rate of diagnosis of autism is explained by expanding the criteria and diagnosing it more often. Nothing actually changed.

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Monthly Roundup #38: January 2026

Posted on January 16, 2026 by TheZvi

Good news, we managed to make some cuts. I think?

Table of Contents

  1. California In Crisis.
  2. Bad News.
  3. Opportunity Knocks.
  4. Government Working.
  5. The Efficient Market Hypothesis Has Thoughts.
  6. No All That Money Doesn’t Go To Pay Interest.
  7. While I Cannot Condone This.
  8. Burnout.
  9. Good News, Everyone.
  10. Good Advice.
  11. For Your Entertainment.
  12. Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game.
  13. Sports Go Sports.
  14. Antisocial Media.

California In Crisis

I’ve written about this before, but it turns out it’s even worse than I realized.

California is toying with a 1.5% annual wealth tax on billionaires, sufficiently seriously that Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel have left the state as a precaution.

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AI #151: While Claude Coworks

Posted on January 15, 2026 by TheZvi

Claude Code and Cowork are growing so much that it is overwhelming Anthropic’s servers. Claude Code and Cowork news has for weeks now been a large portion of newsworthy items about AI.

Thus, at least for now, all things Claude Code and Cowork will stop appearing in the weekly updates, and will get their own updates, which might even be weekly.

Google offered us the new Universal Commerce Protocol, and gives us its take on Personalized Intelligence. Personalized Intelligence could be a huge deal if implemented correctly, integrating the G-Suite including GMail into Gemini, if they did a sufficiently good job of it. It’s too early to tell how well they did, and I will report on that later.

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