Anthropic Consults Law Firms to Set Fair Norms for AI Negotiation Agents

Anthropic seeks legal guidance for AI deal-making

Anthropic is consulting with law firms to develop fair negotiation norms for AI agents that would act on behalf of users, the Financial Times reported. The effort aims to set rules for systems that could haggle over prices, resolve complaints, or improve contract offers. The company says it is still figuring out how AI agents could negotiate on behalf of users.

Negotiation skills raise inequality concerns

Anthropic has already shown in experiments that stronger models negotiate better deals, a finding that could widen societal inequality if advanced negotiation ability becomes concentrated in more capable systems.

The work also fits a broader hiring push. Anthropic is recruiting Conceptual Reasoning Fellows, specifically lawyers, to spend four months testing Claude on judgment-heavy questions in law, philosophy, cognitive science, economics, and political science. The fellows are paid between $100,000 and $167,000.

A data problem in the humanities

The push traces back to a data problem. In math and code, improving AI models is relatively easy because verifiable data is plentiful or easy to generate. In the humanities, that data does not exist, partly because right and wrong answers are rarely clear-cut. Anthropic says it needs experts who can build test cases and evaluations to make Claude stronger in these areas.

Justin Curl, a member of technical staff researching law, institutions, and AI at Anthropic, argues that in law it is "notoriously hard to define quality."

Sources: The Decoder · Techmeme