Anthropic said it stopped multiple attempts by scientists this year to use its technology for research that could help develop biological weapons, as experts increasingly fear the threat that AI poses to public safety. The startup gave five examples of times actors “circumvented controls” and made other efforts to “obfuscate” the purpose of their research to dodge safeguards. The cases involved some users in nations that it prohibits from accessing its models, which include Russia, China, and Iran.
The case studies of possible biological misuse that the company provided included a researcher from an “unsupported region” who “spent weeks planning” experiments involving avian influenza with Claude, Anthropic’s AI model. The company said its safety filters restricted the work to its weakest models. It emphasized it could not be sure that the scientists in its examples intended to cause harm.
The same information needed to create biological weapons could also be used to develop a vaccine. Anthropic said it had banned the accounts mentioned in the report, but it did not disclose the names of the research institutions or the nations where the incidents took place.
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