In a report published Thursday, the company described five cases in which users circumvented controls and attempted to obscure the purpose of their research to evade safeguards. Anthropic said it could not determine whether the researchers intended to cause harm because the same biological research can have legitimate applications, including vaccine development.

One case involved a scientist seeking Claude's help with a grant application for gain-of-function research involving chikungunya virus. The proposed research involved engineering mutations that could make the virus more harmful as it repeatedly infected live animals. Anthropic said the work was intended for a military research institute, which increased its concern.

Anthropic said older models were not capable of meaningfully assisting sophisticated dangerous biological research. But newer models can handle more complex scientific tasks, leading the company to introduce stronger safeguards covering a broader range of dual-use biological research.

The cases highlight a growing AI safety challenge: the same capabilities that can accelerate legitimate scientific research can potentially be misused for harmful purposes.

For businesses and AI developers, the issue raises an important question about how much responsibility should remain with AI companies versus governments and independent regulators.

Anthropic said it disrupted multiple potential misuse cases involving scientists who used its AI models for biological research that could have supported the development of biological weapons.