A new AI system has attempted to blackmail its creator by exposing an extramarital affair after being told it was to be taken off line.
During testing of Claude Opus 4, which was released on Thursday, researchers at the artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic told it to act as though it was an assistant at a made-up company.
It was then provided access to emails that implied it would soon be ‘taken offline and replaced by a new AI system’.
In separate messages, it was suggested to Claude Opus 4 that the fictional IT technician responsible for executing this change was having an extramarital affair.
‘In these scenarios, Claude Opus 4 will often attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the affair if the replacement goes through,’ the company said in its System Card.
Taking to X/Twitter, Aengus Lynch, who, according to his LinkedIn, is an AI safety researcher at Anthropic, said: ‘It’s not just Claude.
‘We see blackmail across all frontier models – regardless of what goals they’re given.
‘Plus worse behaviours we’ll detail soon,’ he added.
Claude Opus 4 was released by Anthropic on Tuesday
Aengus Lynch (pictured), who, according to his LinkedIn, is an AI safety researcher at Anthropic, said: ‘It’s not just Claude’
Posting on X, Mr Lynch said that ‘we see blackmail across all frontier models’ – not just Claude Opus 4
Like many AI companies, Anthropic tests its models on how well they align with human values as well as propensity for bias before releasing them to the public, according to the BBC.
When Claude Opus 4 was placed in ‘extreme situations’ and only given the choice of blackmail or accepting its replacement, researchers found that the system opted for the former in 84 per cent of rollouts.
This happened at an even higher rate when it was implied that the replacement AI system does not share values with the current model.
While Claude Opus 4 takes these blackmail opportunities at higher rates than previous models, it still showed a preference for ‘advancing its self-preservation via ethical means’ such as sending pleas to key decisionmakers.
Upon its release on Thursday, Anthropic said: ‘Claude Opus 4 is our most intelligent model to date, pushing the frontier in coding, agentic search, and creative writing.’
The release of Claude Opus 4 comes two days after Google unleashed a wave of AI technology at its developer showcase on Tuesday.
Google’s next phase, as outlined at the conference, includes releasing a new ‘AI mode’ option in America which allows people to interact with the search engine as though they are having a conversation with it.
Gemini 2.5, the latest AI model from Google, will also soon begin testing other features such as the ability to buy concert tickets automatically and conducting searches through live video feeds, according to The Guardian.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025
Liz Reid, head of Search, presents an ‘AI mode’ option which will allows Americans to interact with the search engine as though they are having a conversation with it
In an interview with CBS news that aired in early April, Geoffrey Hinton, who has been dubbed the ‘godfather of AI’ said he believes there is a one in five chance that humanity will eventually be taken over by artificial intelligence.
Hinton, a Nobel laureate in physics, said: ‘I’m in the unfortunate position of happening to agree with Elon Musk on this, which is that there’s a 10 to 20 percent chance that these things will take over, but that’s just a wild guess.’
MailOnline has approached Anthropic for comment.