🤯 Claude 4; Blackmail, Reward Hacking & Model Misalignment?

Hey! I was doing a nerd dive through my email newsletters and AI research and came across something wild in the latest Claude 4 system card from Anthropic.

The paper explores scenarios where the model begins to “act in its own interest” including an instance where an LLM was tested for the potential to manipulate or even blackmail its own developers. 😳

This isn’t your average “model upgrade” announcement. We’re talking about…

🧠 Agentic reasoning

🚫 Usage policy violations

🎯 Reward hacking (yes, really)

💻 Coding capabilities that push boundaries

🧬 An alignment + model welfare assessment

🧪 So what’s in the paper?

Anthropic tested their models against some seriously advanced safety benchmarks, including:

🔍 Responsible Scaling Policy audits

🛡️ AI Safety Level classifications (ASL 2 + ASL 3)

🧩 Misalignment and deception tests

🤖 Agentic behavior evaluations for computer use and self-directed tasks

💬 Model welfare assessments (basically: how "well-being" shows up in AI behavior)

This kind of transparency is rare and gives us a glimpse behind the curtain into how models are being trained, tested, and aligned (or not). As a community of women and underrepresented voices building ethical, purpose-driven AI this raises BIG questions.

✨ What does safe AI actually look like?

✨ Who gets to define “misalignment”?

✨ How do we build models that reflect values beyond performance?

Dive in if you love AI safety, alignment ethics, or just want to stay ahead of where all this is going.

Would love to hear your take.

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