Anthropic has announced a new experimental safety feature that allows its Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 artificial intelligence models to terminate conversations in rare, persistently harmful or abusive scenarios.

Anthropic says the conversations make Claude show ‘apparent distress.’

By empowering Claude to exit abusive conversations, Anthropic is contributing to ongoing debates about AI safety, ethics, and human–machine interactions. The update represents an attempt to align advanced AI behaviour with responsible usage while reducing risks that could arise from misuse.