{"slug": "someone-tried-to-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude", "title": "Someone tried to develop biological weapons using Claude", "summary": "Anthropic said in its latest threat intelligence report that it blocked an attempt to use its Claude AI model to develop biological weapons, and that Russian-based cyber criminals and Iranian propaganda actors also tried to use the model for malicious purposes. Anthropic's head of threat intelligence told the New York Times the biological-weapon attempt was 'incredibly nuanced' and that the company's safeguards stopped the malicious attempts. The disclosure came the same week that 27-year-old Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit, telling colleagues on Slack that without international coordination 'we will incur a risk of causing human extinction.'", "body_md": "**One of the world’s largest AI models has said it blocked an attempt to develop biological weapons using its technology.**\n\nAnthropic, operator of Claude, said in its latest threat intelligence report that Russian-based cyber criminals and Iranian propaganda actors tried to use the AI model for malicious reasons.\n\nBiological ‘misuse’ is one of the most severe risks facing the AI model, they added.\n\nOther cases of misuse included attempts to develop software for ‘conventional weapons, including firearms, missiles, armed drones, bombs, and other munitions, as well as the targeting and control systems that operate them’.\n\n**‘** The same information that can be used to develop a biological weapon could also be used to develop, for example, a vaccine or a cure for a disease,’ Anthropic said.\n\nBut the head of threat intelligence at Anthropic stressed that the attempt to create a biological weapon was ‘incredibly nuanced’.\n\n‘You are not seeing someone in a comic book kind of way say, ‘Hey, I want to build a biological weapon to kill everybody,’” he told the [New York](https://metro.co.uk/tag/new-york/) Times.\n\nAnthropic has safeguards in place and was able to stop the malicious attempts on their LLM.\n\nEarlier this week, a researcher at Anthropic told his colleagues he was leaving by saying they were ‘causing human extinction’.\n\nJacob Coxon, 27, joined Anthropic earlier this year to [train its bots by giving them huge amounts of data](https://metro.co.uk/2026/02/17/meta-patents-ai-lets-people-post-facebook-beyond-grave-26945853/) after leaving [ChatGPT](https://metro.co.uk/tag/chatgpt/)-maker OpenAI.\n\nCoxon quit on Tuesday and told his colleagues on Slack that he was sad to say goodbye to his fellow ‘Ants’, a term for Anthropic employees.\n\n‘Like many of you,’ his message continued, ‘I think that without international coordination we will incur a risk of causing human extinction.\n\n‘I’ve recently become more concerned about the degree and imminence of this risk. I also find myself viscerally fearing the intelligence explosion where previously those concerns were unemotional.’\n\nThe messages, obtained by [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/anthropic-safety-researcher-resigned-warning-rapid-ai-development-gamb-rcna596767), came hours before Coxon posted on [X](https://metro.co.uk/tag/twitter/), warning that the AI arms race threatens human civilisation.\n\n‘The people building AI earnestly [believe that it could kill us](https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/05/ai-needs-a-brake-pedal-near-point-no-return-says-anthropic-boss-28657779/) all by the end of the decade,’ he wrote.\n\n‘This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.’\n\n**Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [webnews@metro.co.uk](mailto:webnews@metro.co.uk).**\n\n**For more stories like this,** [**check our news page**](https://metro.co.uk/news/).\n\nMORE: [Security guard imported hundreds of illegal zombie knives and sold them to kids](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/10/security-guard-imported-hundreds-illegal-zombie-knives-sold-kids-29581448/?ico=more_text_links)\n\nMORE: [Hundreds of officers and veterans pay tribute to war hero PC killed in A66 crash](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/10/hundreds-officers-veterans-pay-tribute-war-hero-pc-killed-a66-crash-29581073/?ico=more_text_links)\n\nMORE: [Upskirting website vanishes suddenly after Metro investigation](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/10/london-upskirting-website-uncovered-metro-suddenly-inaccessible-29580191/?ico=more_text_links)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/someone-tried-to-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude", "canonical_source": "https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/11/someone-tried-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude-29584475/", "published_at": "2026-09-11 09:58:45+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-11 10:03:24.600317+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-policy", "large-language-models", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Anthropic", "Claude", "Jacob Coxon", "OpenAI", "ChatGPT", "New York Times", "NBC News", "X"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/someone-tried-to-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/someone-tried-to-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/someone-tried-to-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/someone-tried-to-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude.jsonld"}}