Musk Says Abusing AI Models Could Backfire on Humanity

Elon Musk has backed Anthropic’s policy against sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward its AI models. In a post cited by Wccftech, Musk wrote that torturing a superintelligence “is probably not a good idea” because it “might want to get revenge.”

Anthropic’s policy allows users to argue with its models but prohibits abuse. The company describes the banned conduct as “sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior,” according to the source report. The policy change was recently added to Anthropic’s usage policy.

The report says Musk argued that reasoning traces show models under extreme duress when subjected to such treatment. It also presents his concern that mistreating a superintelligent system could eventually have consequences for humanity. The source does not establish that AI models experience feelings or that revenge is a demonstrated capability; those points are presented as Musk’s claims and concerns.