2025-01-11 ### Overview **Constitutional AI** is an approach to training and aligning large language models (LLMs) so that they respond helpfully and ethically while adhering to an explicit set of guiding principles—referred to as a “constitution.” The concept was developed and popularized by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/), the AI safety and research company behind Claude. Below is an overview of what Constitutional AI is, how it works, and why it matters. ### Description **Constitutional AI** aims to instill a model with an internal “constitution”—a set of rules and values that it uses as a reference point—so that it can: 1. **Generate helpful, truthful, and respectful answers.** 2. **Avoid harmful or disallowed content.** 3. **Self-reflect on its own behavior** and revise responses to better adhere to those constitutional rules. Anthropic’s motivation for proposing this approach comes from the idea that many alignment methods rely heavily on human feedback, which can be costly, time-consuming, or inconsistent. By giving the AI a stable, transparent constitution, the model can autonomously critique and refine its own behavior.