Claude Opus 5.5 reportedly balks at a population ethics problem, researcher suspects 'repugnant conclusion' aversion

anderssandberg · x · 2026-09-28

Researcher Anders Sandberg tried to get Claude Opus 5.5 to analyze a technical problem in population ethics and immediately hit a refusal. He speculates the model balks because it finds the conclusion repugnant (a nod to the Repugnant Conclusion), a notable case study of model behavior on edge-case ethical reasoning.

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