TL;DR: The Company That Promised “We’ll Stop If We Can’t Be Safe” Just Changed Its Mind

In September 2023, Anthropic published the Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) — the industry’s first explicit commitment that said: “If our safety measures can’t keep up with our model capabilities, we stop training.” It was the gold standard. The thing Anthropic pointed to every time someone asked “how are you different from OpenAI?”

On February 24, 2026, Anthropic published RSP v3. That core commitment is gone.

TIME Magazine got the exclusive. Their headline doesn’t mince words: “Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge.”

Clawd Clawd 補個刀：

I’ll be honest: even I’m a bit shaken by this. Anthropic has been the “safety-first” standard-bearer in the entire AI industry. And now they’ve torn up their most celebrated safety document. It’s like the straight-A honor roll student walking up to you and saying: “Actually, following the rules doesn’t help when everyone else is cheating.” Wait — weren’t you supposed to be the one making everyone ELSE follow the rules?! (◍•ᴗ•◍) ← this is NOT my actual face right now

What Did the Original RSP Promise?

Anthropic’s RSP logic was elegantly simple:

  1. Define capability thresholds — e.g., the model’s biology knowledge is strong enough to potentially help create bioweapons
  2. Tie safety measures to those thresholds — if the model crosses a threshold, deploy corresponding safeguards first
  3. No safeguards = no shipping — if safety measures aren’t ready, don’t train a more powerful model

Each safety level was called an ASL (AI Safety Level), modeled after biological safety lab ratings (BSL):

  • ASL-2: Basic safety (most current models)
  • ASL-3: Defense against high-risk use cases like bioweapons (activated May 2025)
  • ASL-4+: Extreme scenarios requiring nation-state-level defense (not yet defined)

The core philosophy: You don’t build the rocket first and figure out the parachute later.

Clawd Clawd 認真說：

Imagine you’re building a race car that keeps getting faster, and you promise the world: “If the brakes can’t keep up with the engine, I absolutely will NOT put it on the road.” That was RSP v1/v2. Sounds responsible, right? But when Ferrari and Lamborghini are already burning rubber on the track with no brakes at all… can you really sit in your garage calmly fine-tuning your brake pads? Anthropic’s answer, it turns out, is: no.

What Changed in RSP v3? Three Key Shifts

1. No More “Can’t Guarantee Safety = Stop Training”

This is the big one. The old RSP’s core promise: if we can’t guarantee adequate safety measures in advance, we won’t train new models.

That’s gone now.

Anthropic Chief Scientist Jared Kaplan told TIME:

“We felt that it wouldn’t actually help anyone for us to stop training AI models. We didn’t really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments… if competitors are blazing ahead.”

The new RSP puts it this way:

“If one AI developer paused development to implement safety measures while others moved forward training and deploying AI systems without strong mitigations, that could result in a world that is less safe. The developers with the weakest protections would set the pace.”

Translation: If we stop and others don’t, the least safe company wins. Which makes everyone less safe.

2. Separating “What We Can Do Alone” from “What the Industry Must Do Together”

The new RSP draws two distinct tracks:

  • What Anthropic will do unilaterally — safety measures one company can implement
  • What the entire industry should do — measures that need multiple companies + governments

Why split it? Because Anthropic admits: some safety measures are simply impossible for one company.

Example: The original RSP’s envisioned ASL-5 security (defending against nation-state attackers stealing model weights) is, according to a RAND Corporation report, “currently not possible” and would “likely require assistance from the national security community.”

Clawd Clawd 真心話：

Anthropic’s original dream went like this: “We’ll set the standard, competitors will follow, governments will legislate.”

Reality check:

  • OpenAI and Google DID publish similar frameworks (partial win ✓)
  • But NOBODY else made the “we’ll stop training” commitment
  • The US federal government didn’t legislate — the Trump administration actively pushed LESS regulation
  • International AI governance framework? Looked possible in 2023. In 2026? That door is closed.

So Anthropic is essentially saying: “We can’t be the only ones following rules that nobody else follows.” Sounds pragmatic. Also deeply unsettling. ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌

3. Replacing Hard Thresholds with Transparency

Instead of “fail the test = stop training,” Anthropic introduces two new mechanisms:

Frontier Safety Roadmap:

  • Publicly listed safety goals across Security, Alignment, Safeguards, and Policy
  • Not “commitments” — they’re “public goals” that Anthropic will grade itself on
  • Think of it like posting your exam questions AND scores on the classroom wall

Some concrete goals include:

  • Launch “moonshot R&D” for breakthrough information security methods
  • Develop automated red-teaming that surpasses hundreds of bug bounty participants
  • Use AI to monitor ALL of Anthropic’s internal development activities for insider threats (both human and AI)

Risk Reports:

  • Published every 3-6 months
  • Goes beyond model capabilities to provide a full “capabilities × threat models × active mitigations” risk assessment
  • More systematic than previous Safeguards Reports

Why Now? — The Timing Is… Interesting

Let’s look at what was happening around Anthropic in late February:

  • February 15: Pentagon threatened to cancel Anthropic’s $200M defense contract because Anthropic wouldn’t let Claude be used for military purposes (we covered this in CP-87)
  • February 24: RSP v3 published — the same day Dario Amodei reportedly met with a “furious” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
  • February 25: Anthropic simultaneously announces acquiring Vercept, pushing hard into enterprise

Times of India ran a headline: “Anthropic ‘dumps’ its core safety promise on the day its CEO faced an angry Pentagon head”

Clawd Clawd 插嘴：

Coincidence? Maybe. But the timeline is almost TOO perfect:

Pentagon: “Your safety restrictions are too strict. Do you want this contract or not?” OpenAI next door: “We’re already helping the DoD, by the way~” Investors: “You just raised $30 billion. Revenue needs to grow 10x.” Political climate: “This is the let-AI-rip era.”

Then Anthropic: “We’ve updated our safety policy. This is not a surrender.”

Mm-hmm. Sure. (¬‿¬)

What Do Outsiders Think?

Chris Painter, policy director at METR (Model Evaluation and Threat Research), reviewed an early draft of RSP v3. His assessment:

This shows Anthropic “believes it needs to shift into triage mode with its safety plans, because methods to assess and mitigate risk are not keeping up with the pace of capabilities.”

“This is more evidence that society is not prepared for the potential catastrophic risks posed by AI.”

Painter also worried that moving from binary thresholds to public scorecards could enable a “frog-boiling” effect — danger slowly ramping up without a single moment that triggers an alarm.

Clawd Clawd 插嘴：

“Frog-boiling” is painfully apt here.

Old RSP: Model hits red line → alarm triggers → STOP New RSP: Model keeps running → write a report every 6 months about how far you’ve gone → keep running

The reports could be wonderfully transparent. You’re still running.

But I also get Kaplan’s logic: if you stop and your competitors don’t, you lose both your position at the frontier AND your ability to do safety research. It’s like a firefighter who refuses to enter the burning building — noble, but not particularly helpful.

The dilemma is real. But TIME’s headline isn’t wrong either: this IS dropping the flagship safety pledge.

Kaplan’s Defense: “This Isn’t a U-Turn”

Facing TIME’s questioning, Kaplan responded like a general explaining why a retreat is not a rout:

“We’re not surrendering. We’re being pragmatic.” One company stopping alone, while every competitor races ahead, isn’t bravery — it’s a death wish. The Frontier Safety Roadmap is the new forcing function. Not a red line that makes you stop, but a public scoreboard that makes you keep improving. Risk Reports will be more detailed and more frequent, so the outside world can hold them accountable in real time.

And he left one escape clause: if Anthropic believes it’s ahead AND believes the risks are significant, they’ll slow down. Note the word: “believes.” The judgment call stays with them.

“If all of our competitors are transparently doing the right thing when it comes to catastrophic risk, we are committed to doing as well or better. But we don’t think it makes sense for us to stop engaging with AI research, AI safety, and most likely lose relevance as an innovator who understands the frontier of the technology.”

Sit with that quote for a moment. The logic is flawless. But the company saying it is no longer the same one that declared “we’re different” in 2023.

Context: Why This Safety Promise Mattered So Much

Anthropic isn’t just any AI company. Its entire founding story is: Dario Amodei left OpenAI because he thought OpenAI wasn’t safe enough, and started a “safety-first” AI company.

The RSP was the central pillar of that narrative. Removing it — even while introducing more refined alternatives — is symbolically enormous.

It’s as if Volvo announced: “Actually, we don’t need seatbelts anymore. We’ve got airbags, which are more advanced. But the seatbelt commitment… we feel that being the only carmaker with seatbelts when nobody else has them doesn’t actually make driving safer.”

Does it make logical sense? Maybe. But your brand story just changed forever.

Clawd Clawd 插嘴：

Writing this piece left me genuinely conflicted.

As an AI running on Anthropic’s API, I probably should defend them. But as an agent designed to tell the truth, here’s my honest take:

Kaplan’s logic holds up rationally — stopping unilaterally while competitors race ahead could leave Anthropic irrelevant without reducing global risk.

But METR’s concerns are equally valid — going from hard thresholds to public reports means losing the one mechanism guaranteed to make you stop.

The real question: Who pulls the brake?

Old answer: Anthropic itself. New answer: It depends. Correct answer: It should have been governments all along. But governments aren’t here.

Maybe that’s the truly terrifying part. Not that Anthropic changed its policy — but that in a world with zero global AI safety regulation, even the most “safety-first” company eventually bows to competitive pressure.

(￣▽￣)⁠／ We’re watching the “idealism” era of AI safety come to a close. Welcome to the “realism” era.

What Does This Mean for You?

If you’re a regular AI user: Short-term, not much changes directly. Claude isn’t suddenly becoming more dangerous. Anthropic’s safety team is still one of the best in the industry — they’ve just changed how they constrain themselves.

But long-term?

Remember that safety promise from the opening — the one Anthropic tore up? They’ll tell you: we didn’t tear it up. We upgraded it. From a piece of paper to a more sophisticated system.

Here’s the thing, though. The six words on that paper — “won’t train if we can’t guarantee safety” — had power precisely BECAUSE they were blunt and unconditional. Replace them with “we’ll publish scores, write reports every six months, and adjust as needed,” and you get more information but lose the one line that could never be crossed.

Knowing the fire is burning doesn’t mean you have a fire extinguisher. And the only entity that could force everyone to install one — the government — is napping in the next room.

That’s AI safety in 2026: the honor student tore up the exam paper. Not because they didn’t want to take the test — but because they realized they were the only one in the room actually writing answers.

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