The primary sources Anthropic utilized in designing Claude’s Constitution include: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Apple’s Terms Of Service, DeepMind’s Sparrow Rules, and Anthropic research sets 1 & 2. It is unclear upon which primary source Anthropic based its “Principles Encouraging Consideration Of Non-Western Perspectives”.

In the spirit of feedback, I’d like to propose to the Anthropic team some additional key references for developing Claude’s adaptive constitutional principles.

International Human Rights

Importantly, ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ (UDHR) – which is already integrated into Claude’s constitutional principles – together with both ‘The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ (ICESCR) and ‘The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (ICCPR), make up the International Bill of Human Rights. I believe the ICESCR, ICCPR, and the International Bill of Human Rights should all be integrated into Claude’s principles.

Non-Western Perspectives

‘The European Charter Of Fundamental Rights’ (CFREU) should also be considered for principles not yet included in Claude’s constitutional alignment. For additional non-Western perspectives, consider the constitutions of well-established democratic governments, such as Costa Rica and Switzerland, and more recently adopted constitutions, such as those of Slovenia (constitution adopted in 1991) and Bahrain (constitution adopted in 2002).

Digital Rights & Principles

‘The European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade’ of 2023 should most definitely be integrated into Claude’s constitution. Principles from the Declaration are shaped around themes such as putting people and their rights at the centre of the digital transformation, supporting solidarity and inclusion, ensuring freedom of choice online, fostering participation in the digital public space, increasing safety, security and empowerment of individuals (especially young people), and promoting the sustainability of the digital future.

Constitutionalized Meta-Rules

Finally, consider adopting for Claude a formal constitution, or set of meta-rules (rules about other rules), rather than simple listed principles. In this way, principles can be subject to the organizational hierarchy of the constitution, with limits or constraints dictated by the rule of structural rationality suggested as necessary means to the attainment of any objective, whatever this might be. Constitutional components to consider include a declaration, preamble, bill of rights, and articles with chapters, titles, and sections. Further, I recommend constitutionalizing the ways in which Claude’s principles may be adjusted.

Final Thoughts

A constitution appropriate to today’s fast-changing world must enhance the collective capacity for recognizing changing circumstances and for altering the shared external rules. I hope to some day see Anthropic build a truly constitutional AI, and I believe that smart-contracts, blockchain, provable digital identity, and DAOs will play key roles in realizing this future.

Thanks for reading!