Overview
Anthropic has officially released Claude’s full “constitution” document - a comprehensive set of values and principles that was previously discovered as a leaked “soul document” baked into the model during training. This 35,000+ token constitution is over 10 times longer than Claude’s published system prompt and has been released under public domain license.
The Breakdown
- A researcher discovered Claude’s “soul document” through prompt manipulation - a hidden constitution containing the AI’s core values that wasn’t in the system prompt but was embedded during training
- The constitution document is 35,000+ tokens long - over 10 times the length of Claude’s published system prompt, revealing the extensive depth of values training
- Anthropic released the full constitution under CC0 public domain license, making Claude’s complete ethical framework openly available for study and scrutiny
- The constitution involved diverse external reviewers including Catholic clergy - notably Father Brendan McGuire (pastor with CS background) and Bishop Paul Tighe (moral theology expert), showing interdisciplinary ethical input