Anthropic Drops Flagship AI Safety Pledge, Rewrites Responsible Scaling Policy

Hard Safety Limits Removed

In a controversial move, Anthropic dropped its flagship AI safety pledge in February 2026, removing the hard limit that previously barred the company from training more capable models without safety measures already proven to work.

What Changed

The previous Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) stipulated that Anthropic should pause training if model capabilities outstripped the company's ability to control them and ensure safety. That measure has been removed in the new version (RSP 3.0).

Three Forces Behind the Change

Anthropic cited three reasons the original structure became untenable:

1. Zone of ambiguity muddling the public case for risk from capability thresholds
2. Anti-regulatory political climate making strict self-regulation harder to maintain
3. Requirements at higher RSP levels that are very hard to meet without industry-wide coordination

The Competitive Argument

Anthropic argued that responsible AI developers pausing growth while less careful actors plow ahead could "result in a world that is less safe." This marks a significant philosophical shift from the company's founding ethos.

New Framework

The updated policy separates two tracks:

• Safety mitigations Anthropic will pursue regardless of what competitors do
• Broader capabilities-to-mitigations map recommending what the full industry should adopt

Anthropic plans to publish detailed "Risk Reports" every three to six months and release "Frontier Safety Roadmaps" laying out future safety goals.

The timing — the same week as the Pentagon confrontation — drew criticism from safety researchers who accused Anthropic of weakening commitments under commercial pressure.

Source: TIME | CNN | WinBuzzer | Semafor