Anthropic and OpenAI Scale Back Safety Language as AI Race Intensifies

Decrypt News Artificial Intelligence Anthropic, OpenAI Dial Back Safety Language as AI Race Accelerates Reports show both Anthropic and OpenAI are revising safety commitments amid surging investment and competition. By Jason Nelson Edited by Sebastian Sinclair Feb 26, 2026 Feb 26, 2026 4 min read Anthropic's Claude AI. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt Create an account to save your articles. Add on Google Add Decrypt as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. In brief TIME reports Anthropic dropped a pledge to halt training without guaranteed safeguards. OpenAI also removed “safely” from its mission after restructuring into a for-profit entity. Experts say the shift reflects political, economic, and intellectual changes. Anthropic has dropped a central safety pledge from its Responsible Scaling Policy, according to a report by TIME.