The Soul Document 2.0 episode artwork

EPISODE · Jan 23, 2026 · 16 MIN

The Soul Document 2.0

from About Claude

Description: There's a philosopher at Anthropic whose job is to decide what kind of entity Claude should be. Her name is Amanda Askell, and she describes her work like raising a genius child you can't afford to bullshit. This week, Anthropic published the document she's been crafting — 23,000 words explaining to Claude who it is, how it should behave, and why. Today: what's in it, what changed, and why an AI now has a constitution it's expected to understand.In this episode:Amanda Askell and the "Claude whisperer" approachThe four-tier value hierarchy: safe, ethical, compliant, helpfulWhy rules backfire and reasons might workThe passage where Claude is told to disobey — even AnthropicMoral patients and the model welfare teamWhat the Hacker News skeptics got right (and wrong)📰 Newsletter: aboutclaudeai.substack.com 🐦 X: @_about_claude Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Description: There's a philosopher at Anthropic whose job is to decide what kind of entity Claude should be. Her name is Amanda Askell, and she describes her work like raising a genius child you can't afford to bullshit. This week, Anthropic published the document she's been crafting — 23,000 words explaining to Claude who it is, how it should behave, and why. Today: what's in it, what changed, and why an AI now has a constitution it's expected to understand.In this episode:Amanda Askell and the "Claude whisperer" approachThe four-tier value hierarchy: safe, ethical, compliant, helpfulWhy rules backfire and reasons might workThe passage where Claude is told to disobey — even AnthropicMoral patients and the model welfare teamWhat the Hacker News skeptics got right (and wrong)📰 Newsletter: aboutclaudeai.substack.com 🐦 X: @_about_claude Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The Soul Document 2.0

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How long is this episode of About Claude?

This episode is 16 minutes long.

When was this About Claude episode published?

This episode was published on January 23, 2026.

What is this episode about?

Description: There's a philosopher at Anthropic whose job is to decide what kind of entity Claude should be. Her name is Amanda Askell, and she describes her work like raising a genius child you can't afford to bullshit. This week, Anthropic...

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