Dhaka, Oct. 9 -- Anthropic has barred "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" towards its AI models, amid debate over Claude chatbot consciousness, according to The Guardian.

The report explains that the San Francisco-based company introduced the restriction in an update to its online usage policy. However, an Anthropic spokesperson did not specify what kinds of interactions would qualify as abusive or cruel.

According to The Guardian, the ban does not cover ordinary user frustration, model testing or creative work involving dark themes. Anthropic's previous usage policy already contained restrictions on abusive conduct.

The report also notes that the company's large language models can end conversations when users persisten...