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![handle is hein.journals/callro17 and id is 1 raw text is:
Corporations Constituting Intelligence
Gilad Abiri*
In January 2026, Anthropic published something unprecedented: a 79-page
constitution for its Al model Claude.1 The document is remarkable. It is not a
terms of service agreement. It is not a list of prohibited outputs. It is, as the
company describes it, a detailed description of Anthropic's intentions for
Claude's values and behavior.2 This constitution stands as a foundational text
meant to shape how an artificial intelligence understands itself, its obligations,
and its place in the world.
The previous, much shorter version,3 published in 2023, consisted of a set
of principles drawn from sources like the UN Declaration of Human Rights4 and
Apple's terms of service.5 The updated constitution is something else entirely. It
explains why Claude should behave in certain ways, not merely what it should
do. It acknowledges that Claude is a genuinely novel kind of entity and
expresses uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of
consciousness or moral status.'6 It establishes a principal hierarchy in
which Anthropic's instructions take precedence over operators' commands,
which take precedence over users' prompts.7 And it offers Claude a decision-
making heuristic: When uncertain, imagine how a thoughtful senior Anthropic
employee would react.8
DOI: https:/doi.org/10.15779/Z38P55DK4J
Copyright © 2026 Gilad Abiri
* Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Program on Law and Innovation at
Peking University School of Transnational Law
1. Claude's Constitution, ANTHRoPIc (Jan. 21, 2026),
https://www.anthropic.com/constitution [https:/perma.cc/Q7NC-NWFP] [hereinafter Anthropic
Constitution].
2. Id
3. Claude's Constitution, ANTHRoPIc (May 9, 2023),
https://www.anthropic.com/news/claudes-constitution [https:/perma.cc/Y2KM-UDXX].
4. G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Dec. 10, 1948),
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights [https:/perma.cc/ZU8R-
8SZR].
5. Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions, APPLE, https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-
services/itunes/us/terms.html [https:/perma.cc/VP5Q-VWG2].
6. Anthropic Constitution, supra note 1.
7. Id
8. Id
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