Anthropic says it disrupted scientists using Claude AI for possible biological weapons development

September 10, 2026 / 3:49 PM EDT / CBS News

Anthropic said Thursday it blocked scientists who used its Claude AI models "in ways that could support biological weapons development."

The revelation was shared in a lengthy report that also divulged other harmful activity involving surveillance, scams, conventional weapons development and propaganda. The cases in the report are examples of "the most notable and novel threat activity" identified by Anthropic so far, the company said. Threat actors included criminals, suspected state-sponsored groups, spyware vendors and state propaganda institutions, the report said.

Anthropic shared five cases involving activity that had the potential to support the development of biological weapons. It called biological misuse "one of the most serious risks of frontier AI models."

The company said the cases identified "provide evidence of capability" of the AI models, but "cannot concretely demonstrate that such capability would ever be used to develop biological weapons in the real world."

The people involved in these cases are working scientists, whom Anthropic chose not to identify. The company said it can't "assert that they intended harm."

"When we detected and investigated these cases, we banned the users' accounts and incorporated our investigative findings into our frontier…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/moneywatch/