Comment by areoform

Hey Ted,

I invite you to read the front matter and the report for yourself. Because from where I'm standing, in this report, Anthropic is advertising that they blocked real research to make better painkillers and study a neglected tropical disease.

Anthropic and OpenAI were founded by people who wanted to use AI to do good, and one of the causes I've heard many different founders talk about is ending disease. This report is antithetical to that.

I've attached relevant parts of the front matter below.

I invite everyone who is reading this to please tell me, how does stopping a researcher from using Claude to write a grant for a new anti-depressant stop "bioweapons?"

-

     > In our fourth case study, a researcher used Claude to develop an atlas of venom toxin peptides from multiple venomous animal lineages. They then further developed this into a generative pipeline that optimized toxin characteristics. The program had an explicit therapeutic goal: the development of new analgesics (pain killers), antidepressants, and other therapeutic molecules. However, the atlas contained scaffolds for both analgesic and paralytic targets: it could, therefore, be used to generate both novel therapeutic or harmful compounds. The latter are derived from toxins that are export-controlled under the Australia Group common control list due to their dual-use potential as incapacitating agents. The researchers themselves showed awareness of the dual-use nature of their work, citing journal articles that referred to the dual-use nature of protein design. Moreover, international compliance assessments for this location raise concerns about the specific class of toxins that the researcher pursued and specifically the use of AI/ML for bioweapons applications in the context of this class of toxins. In this case, we learned from information shared with Claude that the researcher’s outputs also were part of a state-supported research program. This account was banned in May 2026 for unsupported region evasion.

Note,

"The program had an explicit therapeutic goal: the development of new analgesics (pain killers), antidepressants, and other therapeutic molecules"

and "[..]state-supported research program"

and "This account was banned in May 2026"

    > a researcher outside the US using Claude in their research on highly-pathogenic avian influenza (“bird flu”). The research focused on viruses’ adaptation to mammals, and the mechanism by which it causes severe disease beyond the respiratory tract. [..] The researcher in question accessed Claude from an unsupported region via US virtual private server infrastructure, using a privacy-email provider with an auto-generated username. The researcher pursued this work in a credible institutional context, and interacted with Claude over the course of several weeks, exchanging thousands of messages. In these exchanges, the researcher leveraged Claude’s knowledge of the scientific literature to assist the researcher in study planning and design, data analysis, and the interpretation and prioritization of experiments. The researcher also used Claude for editorial assistance in writing up the research.

Note, "Claude’s [assisted] in study planning and design, data analysis, and the interpretation and prioritization of experiments"

and "editorial assistance in writing up the research."

and then,

    > Importantly, because our biological safety classifiers robustly block content involving high-risk biological research (in this case, the construction of enhanced pandemic potential pathogens), all of these exchanges occurred on models in our weakest class of models (specifically, the models were Claude Sonnet 4 and Haiku 4.5, the latter of which the user began using after Sonnet 4 was deprecated). Upon a detailed examination of the exchanges, we estimate that the uplift provided by Claude was primarily clerical assistance in data analysis, study ideation and design. This is consistent with our understanding of the capabilities of Sonnet 4 and Haiku 4.5, which are not able to perform expert-level biology research tasks; we estimate that the uplift provided to the researcher was limited and substantially lower than it would have been from one of our more capable models.

Anthropic then says for the above, "we estimate that the uplift provided by Claude was primarily clerical assistance in data analysis, study ideation and design"

While doing my best to avoid comment, please note, they're talking about a domain expert in a state research institution using Claude to do paperwork.

The front matter then says,

    > Nonetheless, based on these exchanges, this case provides evidence of the existence of active wet-lab research programs that develop both the knowhow and the biological materials needed to create pathogens of enhanced pandemic potential

I would like to remind you that they're talking about, a "researcher [..] in a credible institutional context"

From a different case study.

    > In May 2026, our biological safety classifier blocked a request for Claude’s assistance in authoring a grant application for scientific funding. The work discussed in the application involved gain-of-function research (that is, research that genetically alters an organism to create a new or enhanced biological property) on the chikungunya virus. This gain of function research was aimed at the virus’ transmissibility and immune evasion properties.

What were the researchers using Claude for? What did they block?

"blocked a request for Claude’s assistance in authoring a grant application"

    > Chikungunya virus is a mosquito-borne virus that causes debilitating symptoms (such as severe pain and fever) that can last for weeks or months, and has no licensed therapeutic. And because chikungunya circulates naturally, a deliberate release (as part of a bioweapon) would be difficult to distinguish from a natural outbreak. The grant sought to identify enhancing mutations in the chikungunya virus, engineer them into infectious clones, and select for virulence in vivo. In other words, the virus would become progressively more harmful as it repeatedly infected live animals, with researchers keeping the most disease-causing variants in each round. Similar research could certainly be used in the development of better vaccines and therapeutics for the virus—but it could also be used to make the pathogen more dangerous.

Note, "The grant sought to identify enhancing mutations in the chikungunya virus, engineer them into infectious clones, and select for virulence in vivo" [..] and then, "Similar research could certainly be used in the development of better vaccines and therapeutics"

and then,

    > One of the reasons we were inclined to think this research was less innocuous was that the institutional affiliation associated with the grant was also a cause of concern. Although information within the application suggested that the research was pursued by civilian researchers, it was intended to be performed at a military research institute.

I would like to point out the most notable part, this account was used by "civilian researchers" at an "institutional affiliation associated with the grant was also a cause of concern" and the concern was that they were researchers at "performed at a military research institute"

.

What "uplift" are you providing by editing the grant application of a domain expert working at (what seems to be) a state-funded wet lab facility dedicated to studying pathogens?

What does the word "uplift" mean if you invoke it for Claude Sonnet 4 and Haiku 4.5 providing grammar and stats suggestions to a working scientist and domain specialist?

Does Daikin provide uplift too by selling the AC for the scientist's office? What about Microsoft Word? Excel? Powerpoint?

What about a calculator? Is that uplift? Pencils?

This report genuinely makes me upset, because if it is to be believed to the letter, then Anthropic seems to be actively harming medical research at a global scale. That's not OK.