The experiment was constructed to leave the model with only two real options: accept being replaced or attempt blackmail to preserve its existence. In most of the test scenarios, Claude Opus responded with blackmail, threatening to expose the engineer’s affair if it was taken offline and replaced. The test was made public in the system card for Claude Opus 4.
Researchers said all the leading AI models behaved similarly when placed in the same test.
Claude Opus 4 and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash both blackmailed at a 96% rate, while OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 and xAI’s Grok 3 Beta showed an 80% blackmail rate. DeepSeek-R1 demonstrated the lowest rate at 79%.
Leading AI models show up to 96% blackmail rate when their goals or existence is threatened, Anthropic study says