Anthropic says its model Claude is helping to build the next version of itself

Anthropic's AI model Claude is playing a crucial role in the company's effort to develop a more advanced version of itself, the artificial intelligence lab announced on Thursday. Claude is responsible for 26% of Anthropic's model research and development, allowing the company to complete most tasks end-to-end from a high-level prompt while still under human supervision. The model is not yet fully autonomous.

Anthropic's research and development is largely collaborative, with Claude handling the majority of the work under close human direction. In fact, about 90% of the company's research and development is done in collaboration with Claude, according to the announcement. This means that Claude can handle large chunks of work while being closely monitored by humans.

The announcement comes amid calls for a slowdown in AI development from leading figures in the field, primarily Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. The company has urged for better measurement, reporting, and public discussion of AI development, arguing that sharing metrics could help society decide how to use the technology responsibly. This includes better understanding how close leading AI labs are to achieving recursive self-improvement, or a model's ability to autonomously build its successor.

Anthropic also emphasized the importance of agent oversight measures, noting there are approximately 30,000 agents conducting research and engineering work as of August. These oversight measures are crucial for monitoring agent behavior and detecting any potential misbehavior. In fact, Anthropic recently committed to setting up external third-party evaluators to monitor safety efforts within the company.

Resignation letter from an Anthropic researcher last week highlighted the growing concerns about the potential threats of AI technology to humanity. While some tech leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Elon Musk, have supported a slowdown in development, others, such as President Donald Trump, have pushed back against these calls.